1. Racism, Imperialism, And Hamas: More
   Instability And War In Mid-East
2. When Israel Used Hamas .
3. Ford, GM workers need mass strike, global unity
4. U.S. Military Mixes Terror, Torture and Bombs with A Little `Charity'
5. BUSH: STATE OF DISUNION
6. Protest 60% Cuts At Delphi But Must Unite With Auto Workers Worldwide
7. Militarization is Hazardous to Public Health
8. Iran's Ayatollahs Follow MTA-Bloomberg-Pataki Footsteps
9. Bosses Murder 2 More Miners; War Budget Lays Off Inspectors
10. Spreading CHALLENGE Among Workers: This Mission is Being Accomplished
11. Expose Liberals' Anti-Immigrant `Good-Cop' Role
12. Bolivia: Choosing One Imperialist Over Another Is Not Road to Workers' Power
    1. REVOLUTIONARY? OR CAPITALIST DEMAGOGUE?
    2. EVO'S `NATIONALIZATION' NO THREAT TO IMPERIALISTS
    3. IF MORALES IS NO THREAT, WHY HAVE U.S. RULERS DEMONIZED HIM?
    4. INTER-IMPERIALIST RIVALRY FUELS BRAZIL-U.S. DISPUTE OVER HEMISPHERIC CONTROL
13. Not Fooled by Chavez's Fake Revolution, Youth Joins PLP
14. LETTERS
    1. STRIKE SPARKED WORKING CLASS
    2. Transit Workers Reject Pro-Boss Leaders
    3. Workers Post Challenge on Token Booth
    4. Widespread Support for Strike
    5. Reform Activists Open to Revolutionary Ideas
    6. School Rules, Food Sickens Students
    7. What Are Workers' Real Values?
    8. Garment Workers Expose Bosses' Shameless Greed
    9. No `American Dream' for this Transit Worker's Family
15. Redeye on the news
    1. Junk-food profits boost diabetes explosion
    2. Mass wiretaps: `virtually all' on innocents
    3. Biz `gifts' to docs just keep on growing
    4. Big biz bribes judges who try their cases
    5. Slandering ex-slaves to justify Jim Crow
    6. One way a free market ruins world health
16. `Jarhead' Promotes Sacrifice for Imperialist War
17. Alito Hearing Cover for Intensifying Presidential Power
18. Under Communism: War And Communism in Poland, 1944

Racism, Imperialism, And Hamas: More
Instability And War In Mid-East

Hamas' recent electoral triumph throws a monkey wrench into a crucial piece of U.S. imperialism's deadly machinery. For decades, U.S. rulers have employed Israel as a hired gun to help them control the Middle East and its oil. Israel's wars, pre-emptive military attacks and racist atrocities against anti-U.S. Arabs have lessened the Pentagon's need to intervene directly in the region in defense of the U.S. oil empire and its profit-makers -- Exxon-Mobil ($36 billion net profit in 2005, an all-time high for a corporation), Chevron-Texaco, Halliburton & Co..

To play the enforcer role for their U.S. backers, Israeli bosses need some degree of internal stability. Now Hamas, like Al Qaeda, represents those bosses in the Middle East who want to control the major share of the exploitation of Palestinian workers.

Some say the responsibility of governing will soften Hamas. But Michael Hertzog, an Israeli general, warns, "Granting Hamas legitimate political status and access to the prerogatives of state power seems to be asking for trouble." Hertzog quotes the threat of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, "We will join the Legislative Council with our weapons in our hands." (Foreign Affairs, March-April, 2006) Amatzia Baram, senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, thinks "Hamas is more likely to maintain a confrontational stance" and "in the worst case... spark a regional war." (New York Times, 1/29/06)

However, these policy planners gravely underestimate the danger by failing to frame the Hamas flare-up in the context of intensifying imperialist competition in the oil-rich region. Not only has Israel become a less reliable gunslinger for the U.S., but the scale of conflict has gone far beyond the proxy stage, starting with Gulf War I in 1991.

The current "Palestinian question" results directly from the scourges of the profit system, racism and imperialism. Hamas' rise to power, like that of Islamic fundamentalism as the main apparent opponent of imperialism, is one more outcome of the destruction of the old international communist movement.

Israel's Zionist founders, like all capitalists, knew they could boost their profit rate by super-exploiting Arabs, thereby suppressing the wages and living standards of all workers. (Currently 32% of all workers in Israel live under the poverty level, compared to 10% less than 20 years ago; in 2003 the average salary of senior managers in the top 100 companies was $700,000, excluding perks).

To counter rebellion against the apartheid-like second-class status of Palestinian workers, Israel subjected them to military rule from 1948 to 1966. The rulers later tweaked their tactics of oppression. Israeli storm troopers have always gunned down Arabs indiscriminately. But in the 1980's, U.S. bosses began to encourage Israel rulers to deal with phony Palestinian leaders who could keep a lid on dissent and herd workers into low-wage labor camps. The most notorious was Yassir Arafat. In return for renouncing violence, Benjamin Netanyahu and Bill Clinton made Arafat the effective boss of outfits like the Gaza Industrial Estate, where hundreds of underpaid workers toil for Motorola, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Proctor and Gamble and Xerox.

U.S. imperialism further impoverished the Palestinians at the time of Gulf War I. Washington policy-makers, fearing that Kuwait's 400,000 Palestinian oil workers might side with Saddam Hussein, instructed Kuwait's ruling Emir to expel them all. Many returned to Israel jobless.

Hamas' Aim: An Islamic Ruling Class to Replace Western Oil Bosses

The vote for Hamas was largely a vote against U.S.- and Israeli-imposed poverty, apartheid-type racism, killer cops and the rampant corruption of the late Arafat's ruling Fatah party. But it was a serious political error for the Palestinian working class. Hamas' policies are quite literally suicidal. It represents yet another faction of capitalists willing to shed workers' blood for profit. Hamas' sole aim is to replace Western oil bosses with an Islamic ruling class.

Internal turmoil sharpened by the Hamas crisis undermines Israel's already waning ability to bail out the U.S. militarily. The peak of Israel's usefulness for U.S. rulers came in 1973. With the U.S. still mired in Vietnam, Israel took on and beat the combined might of Egypt and Syria. To do so, Israel put over a tenth of its population on the battlefield (a feat U.S. rulers only approached in the Civil War and World War II).

In 1981, Israel did Washington's dirty work with air strikes on an Iraqi nuclear plant. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, where support for Iran's newly-enthroned ayatollahs was running high. In a display of U.S.-sponsored ruthlessness, Israel -- under Sharon's orders -- massacred several refugee camps during the invasion. Such actions today could trigger a domestic explosion.

But as bad as it was for U.S. rulers after the Shah's ouster from Iran in 1979, their military position in the Middle East is even more precarious now. Proxies like Israel can provide only marginal help. Gulf Wars I and II taught hard lessons -- which the Bush gang has yet to learn -- about the Persian Gulf and troop strength. The U.S. couldn't take Iraq with 750,000 soldiers in 1991. It surely can't hold it in 2006 with 150,000.

With China entering the fray, the U.S. will have to mobilize millions in the foreseeable future. That's why the Pentagon itself released a report last week that the army was stretched "to the breaking point." While ostrich-like Rumsfeld ignored the problem, the top general in Iraq, George Casey, concurred. Madeleine Albright and William Perry, Clinton's Secretaries of State and Defense, have issued a report with conclusions identical to the Pentagon's. The liberal Democrats only differ with the Bushites over how to wage more deadly and wider imperialist wars.

The Hama's crisis threatens more local wars and underscores the inevitability of combat magnitudes more deadly than the current U.S. killing sprees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The history of the last century shows that workers, organized and led by a communist party, can transform such imperialist wars into revolutions for workers' power.

When Israel Used Hamas .

Israel "aided Hamas directly...[in the 1970's] the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization]," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.

Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative," said a former senior CIA official.

According to documents United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel and Palestine were "weak and dormant" until after the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel scored a stunning victory over its Arab enemies. (Richard Sale, UPI Terrorism Correspondent)

Ford, GM workers need mass strike, global unity

DETROIT, Jan. 24 -- "Why would any U.S. Toyota or Honda worker join the UAW watching this go on?" asked a Ford worker, referring to recent health care concessions which his local voted down

2-1. Another added, "The global economy can't be stopped, but building plants around the world looking for the cheapest wages creates more poverty everywhere. Paying pennies an hour doesn't create any new markets, while workers here either losing, or afraid of losing, their jobs aren't going to buy any new cars either." The first worker replied, "The bosses are global, but so are the workers. But we need international leadership. Our union leaders are backing the companies instead of the workers around the world."

These workers were discussing the recent plant closings and job cuts announced by GM and Ford, what one "specialist in manufacturing efficiency" called "the sad story of two armies in retreat, a retreat that is feeling more and more like a rout." (NY Times, 1/25) GM announced that it lost $8.6 billion in 2005, $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter alone, just four days after Ford announced it would close 14 factories over the next six years and eliminate up to 30,000 jobs. The St. Louis assembly plant will close March 10.

If GM and Ford are "armies in retreat," then the two Ford workers quoted above are soldiers in that army. And like the soldiers in the Russian army during World War I, or U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, soldiers in a losing army have the potential to rebel, revolt and, with communist leadership, lead the working class to power. While the UAW leadership is rushing to the aid of its billionaire masters, PLP is organizing soldiers in the global car wars to unite with autoworkers worldwide, and build a mass international PLP to lead the struggle for communist revolution.

GM lost more than $5 billion in North America, as sales slumped and its market share dropped to 23.6%, the lowest since the 1920's. Like Ford, last November GM announced plans to close 12 factories and cut 30,000 jobs. Along with Chrysler's restructuring, the "Big Three" U.S. auto companies will have cut 140,000 jobs since 2000. The sharp decline in auto jobs has hit black workers particularly hard, down by 33% in the last 25 years (Report by Center for Economic and Policy Research)

Hundreds of thousands of active and retired workers and their families are being thrown overboard to meet the fierce competition from Asia and Europe, especially for the U.S. market, which last year sold 16.9 millions cars and trucks. Almost 60% went to foreign-based auto companies and Toyota is about to overtake GM as the world's biggest automaker. In March, Toyota is expected to announce annual profits of more than $11 billion.

The plant closings and job cuts come as the UAW leadership gave Ford and GM billions of dollars in health care concessions midway through the current contract. GM got $15 billion in current and future health care concessions. Meanwhile, Delphi workers, most of whom are former GM workers, are angry and want a mass strike. (See article page 3.) A Delphi strike now could shut GM almost immediately and force it to spend its $20 billion cash-on-hand, driving the auto giant into bankruptcy. This could create an airline-industry scenario of union-busting, massive concessions and jobs cuts throughout the auto industry.

As the struggle in auto heats up, May Day looms on the horizon. Building networks of CHALLENGE readers and distributors among the soldiers in these "retreating armies," can lead to a block of autoworkers participating in May Day and making their presence felt in the class struggle. This is the short-term plan on the long-term road to revolution.

U.S. Military Mixes Terror, Torture and Bombs with A Little `Charity'

When I was a soldier in Iraq, my unit ran humanitarian missions. We gave truckloads of food to children at the local orphanage, blankets to the farming families around our base, and boxes and boxes of water to the barefoot kids on the side of the road. All together, all the supplies we distributed in a year couldn't last the community more than a month. But most troops in my old unit thought, "At least we are trying to help the Iraqi people." Still, in other units, the chain of command ordered troops do things many in the U.S. and even in the military wouldn't believe.

At an anti-war event, a young black veteran, let's call him Jay, told me how he couldn't sleep at night. Jay is easy-going and barely past his teens but he'd seen and done things most people haven't.

"We zip cuffed this one guy and I shot him in the back of the head," he said stuttering. Jay said his unit never really faced insurgents. "It was more gangsters. Guys with guns who didn't look behind their weapon, aim, or take cover. We killed them. But most of the time it was civilians. We'd knock down a door of a house, it didn't matter which one. We'd find the men of fighting age and beat them up. Sometimes we killed them."

Jay says his unit operated on its own. "Sometimes we cut off an area for the special forces. No civilians, no military, nobody was allowed through. Most of the time we were on our own." He said his unit targeted civilian men in mosques, dug graves, and burnt bodies to keep their actions secret.

Jay was discharged because of his injuries. Some details - what his unit was, where and when he was in Iraq, and even his name -- have been changed or withheld to protect his identity. But the fact is, the U.S. military uses terrorism, torture and bombs mixed with a little charity all to remain the Number One super-power in its rivalry with other imperialists, even though the media that reaches here about troops in Iraq focuses on humanitarian missions.

Red Vet

BUSH: STATE OF DISUNION

Bush's State of the Union speech again exposed the differences between various sections of the ruling class. The Democrats and the main voice of the liberal capitalist establishment, the N.Y. Times, criticized Bush for not appealing to the population to sacrifice even more for a future of endless wars and sharpening imperialist rivalry: "Simply calling for more innovation is painless. The hard part is calling for anything that smacks of sacrifice -- on the part of consumers or special interests, and politicians who depend on their support. "(NYT editorial, Feb. 1)

Again, the liberal bosses are angry at the Bush gang for not preparing the country for more and more wars. "After 9/11, the president had the perfect moment to put the nation on the road toward energy independence," says the Times, "when people were prepared to give up their own comforts in the name of a greater good. He passed it by, and he missed another opportunity last night."

It's a big mistake to still believe the Democrats and the liberal section of the U.S. ruling class are "more enlightened" than the Bushites and Neo-Cons. They differ tactically over how to prepare the workers to shed more blood and their pensions, health plans and wages. In order to meet the growing challenges facing U.S. imperialism -- from Baghdad to Beijing -- the liberal wing wants to discipline those bosses and politicians who care more about their own narrow interests than about the entire system.

Protest 60% Cuts At Delphi But Must Unite With Auto Workers Worldwide

DETROIT, MI, Jan. 23 -- Today about 75 active and retired Delphi workers and their supporters, including workers from the nearby GM Truck and Bus plant, picketed Delphi World Headquarters on Crooks Road (the actual name!). The demonstration had been planned to coincide with Delphi boss Steve Miller's attempt to void the UAW contract in bankruptcy court. Miller is demanding a 60% cut in wages and jobs, but delayed the actual court threat until mid-February. The workers, part of a rank-and-file effort called Soldiers of Solidarity (SOS), decided to keep their appointment.

One rally organizer pointed out that Delphi has factories worldwide worth millions, but is only declaring bankruptcy on its U.S. plants. While exposing the bosses' corruption and bad management, he declared that Delphi workers here could maintain their wages and benefits and still be "competitive" in the world auto wars. Competitive against whom?

We support the Delphi workers' struggle against these massive attacks and will help build a strike movement that can shut down Delphi and the wounded GM, (Delphi's parent and main customer). But we're not competing against workers in China, Mexico, India, Germany or South Africa. We're building an international movement of industrial workers to overthrow the bosses with communist revolution. You can't have it both ways. The UAW's outlook of demanding "better" bosses and supporting U.S. automakers against "foreign" competition has put the union on the brink of extinction.

We have another idea. "Workers of the World, Unite!" That's the outlook we'll bring to Delphi workers in the coming battle.

Militarization is Hazardous to Public Health

PHILADELPHIA, PA, Dec. 14 -- As thousands of healthcare workers gathered at the American Public Health Association's (APHA) annual meeting, the liberal wing of the ruling class was preparing to spring a deadly trap. When Senator John Kerry took the stage, you could almost hear the trap snapping shut. Although some held anti-war signs and banners during his speech, the audience's enthusiastic applause showed that doctors, nurses and other public health workers were momentarily caught in this trap.

Public health has become a key front in the battle to win support for imperialist war. Not only do the bosses count on health workers to sell their racist doomsday scenarios to the public, they need health workers to keep their fighting forces fit. After 9/11, Bush and the bosses began to militarize public health, subjecting workers to dangerous and unnecessary smallpox vaccinations and perverting public health science for imperialist war (restructuring public health, medical and nursing curricula to teach bogus epidemiology like bio-terrorism). Most public health workers and professionals lacked the political focus necessary to understand this assault, let alone plan to resist it.

However, a conference highlight was the Iraq war veterans' workshop. Soldiers and their families exploded the myth that the military takes care of its own. A young vet spoke about the daily psychological terror he suffered since returning from Iraq. He remembers the gruesome smell of burning bodies and cannot function at work or at home because of these hallucinations. The VA hospital won't treat him for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because he cannot prove to them that he was in a combat zone.

Outraged parents spoke about their son's descent into alcoholism and eventual suicide after returning from Iraq. A mother spoke about the racism that her son was being taught in boot camp and the hatred he expressed towards Muslims in phone calls and letters he wrote home even before his deployment. These soldiers and their families left no doubt that this is a public health emergency!

To combat this, APHA planted a few soldiers in the audience to repeat the Pentagon's lies, but they only served to galvanize the audience against them. It only proved that the bosses are trying to avoid any discussion of the military's massive failure to care for GI's.

The bosses have used every tactic to prevent public health workers from seeing that class status, more than any other variable, determines who gets sick and who doesn't. The latest tactic has been to blur the lines between public health and the military, which began long before this meeting. Many APHA members are military officers and for years the military has set up recruitment and public relations displays advertising careers in the military as public health services plus bombs.

Corporations also compete for space, advertising products and services with obvious military applications. The MITRE Corporation boasts having "played a critical role in developing some of the most sophisticated command and control systems in the world." It provides technical assistance to the Air Force and has organized the Pentagon. When I asked the project coordinator why a company whose stated objective was "to contribute to winning the war on terrorism, and...to advance the military's transformation into a 21st-century fighting force" was advertising at a public health fair, she replied that the technical expertise supplied by her company had applications for disease surveillance. (And an M-16 can be used to open a can of beans!)

Although the APHA has passed dozens of resolutions condemning war and the use of torture, it continues to permit the military to advertise at APHA meetings. This year, members of the Maternal/Child Health section began an online discussion about the need to give military recruiters the boot. When the discussion gained momentum, APHA staffers asked us to take our conversation elsewhere.

It was clear that the APHA leadership didn't share the membership's anti-imperialist views. These members petitioned the APHA leadership to have an anti-military booth adjacent to the military recruiters. Instead, APHA agreed to a "Peace Booth" in an obscure corner of the exhibit hall, using paid staffers to man the booth. APHA staffers are employed to court congressional members and routinely silence the membership in order to curry favor with those in power.

The effort to kick military recruiters out of APHA was useful for organizing the struggle to wean healthcare workers from the illusion that the liberal Democrats offered a long-term solution or that once the war was over, government funding would be re-directed to social or health programs.

On December 12, Bush arrived in Philadelphia to sell his "victory" strategy and public health workers joined the street protest. They were mostly white and their message was disorganized. The anti-war movement has failed to involve working-class people of all backgrounds as evidenced by the number of people who simply walked by the protesters on their way to work. Unless the anti-war movement adopts a coherent, anti-imperialist focus and engages black, Latino and Asian workers, it will never be a mass movement worthy of working-class support.

Iran's Ayatollahs Follow MTA-Bloomberg-Pataki Footsteps

While U.S. and Iranian bosses quarrel over nukes and oil, they have a lot in common when it comes to attacking workers more and more. On January 28, 17,000 Tehran bus drivers struck the government-owned Vahed Bus Co. As of Jan. 30, over 700 strikers, student supporters and the families of many drivers (including children) had been arrested, many dragged from their homes by thousands of cops who were unleashed to break the strike. The strikers were protesting the jailing of six executive board members and the union president (the latter imprisoned for a month). Several other board members who've been summoned have refused to comply.

Tehran University students published a statement backing the strikers and went to a number of bus depots to support the pickets. Many were arrested at Area 6 Terminus and haven't been heard from since.

The workers' "crime" is to demand decent wages, reinstatement of laid-off drivers and introduction of collective bargaining.

Tehran's mayor says the drivers' union is "illegal." The regime is preparing for a showdown, aiming to crush the strike with a mob of 10,000 vigilantes. The drivers have received warm support from the capital's residents and workers in many other sectors, as well as from around the world.

Bosses Murder 2 More Miners; War Budget Lays Off Inspectors

MELVILLE, W.Va., Jan. 23 -- Another mine, another coal boss, another safety violation -- and two more miners murdered.

Following close on the heels of the murder of 12 other miners in the Sago mine barely three weeks before, on Jan. 21 the lives of Don Bragg, 33, father of two, and Ellery Hatfield, 47, father of four, were snuffed out when a fire erupted on a conveyer belt 900 feet underground in the Alma mine here in Logan County. And sure enough, the drive for profits by the mine owner, the Massey Energy Co., led directly to these deaths.

A miner there, granted anonymity because he feared being fired, told the N.Y. Times (1/22) that this wasn't the first such fire in the Alma mine. "I work at the belt that caught fire and had to put out a fire at the same exact spot just a couple of weeks ago when the sprinkler system didn't work," he said, referring to a Dec. 23 fire. "I reported the fire to my supervisor," he told the Times, "and he ignored it." Had the sprinkler system been working, brothers Bragg and Hatfield might be alive today. But Massey's profits come before fixing sprinkler systems.

Government records show that since last June the Alma mine has been cited at least 12 times for violations involving fire equipment among 100 safety violations overall. But the federal government is just as guilty as the bosses here; its safety agency withdrew a proposal in July 2002 that would have required conveyer belts to be made with fire-resistant materials.

The Massey company -- a notorious union-busting outfit -- is intent on hiding safety hazards, as noted in a 2001 report from the state's Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training which cited "a lot of questions about Massey's use of contract workers and also whether the safety records it was keeping were accurate." Bosses barred rescue units with advanced equipment from entering the mine. (ABC-TV, 1/20)

While the governor is "expressing anguish" and the state's liberal Democratic billionaire Senator John D. Rockefeller IV cries crocodile tears -- "We are in pain," he moans -- the carnage in West Virginia continues. His use of "we" hides the class nature of these murders. Rockefeller and Massey are not in pain; it's the miners who are, while these bosses rake in the profits.

Although West Virginia Congressional Democrat Nick Rahail (whose district includes the Alma mine), whines that "every coal mine health and safety law on the books today is written with the blood of coal miners," the existence of those laws doesn't seem to halt the trail of blood. He says "the health and safety of coal miners [are being] sacrificed on the altar of budget-cutting," yet he and his politician buddies all voted for the war in Iraq which is the source of the budget cutbacks and layoffs of federal mine inspectors.

These 14 miners at the Sago and Alma mines are every bit a casualty of this imperialist war as are the 2.200 GI's and 100,000-plus Iraqi workers dying in Iraq. Until our class succeeds in destroying this profit system with communist revolution, the rich will get richer while workers will continue to die in these bosses' wars, at home and abroad.

Spreading CHALLENGE Among Workers: This Mission is Being Accomplished

"Comrade, mission accomplished. The delivery was successful," said one of the new CHALLENGE distributors, after having given a co-worker a copy for the first time. We're sharpening the campaign to build a political base, based on networks of our revolutionary communist newspaper and the class struggle.

The response has been very encouraging because four co-workers in one area have agreed to distribute the paper and the majority of those who receive the paper help us economically. Part of this political struggle over the paper is for the workers to understand the need to support it financially. For example, 25 of the last edition were distributed and we collected $36. Other comrades in other parts of this same company distribute a similar number. This will be a constant struggle with ups and downs, but we'll try to make it always move forward.

The paper's distribution and discussions about our next contract struggle are proceeding simultaneously. While talking with a group of workers about the contract that expires this year, a black worker said, "All of these past contracts, we've been giving in, giving our benefits and wages, but the more we retreat, the more they push us against the wall. I think that in this new contract, we have to dig in our heels and fight or we'll end up leaving our children a working hell. We have to unite to be able to win."

A comrade said, "To really win, it's not only this struggle. For the liberation of the working class we need to educate ourselves politically, learn about the revolutionary history of the working class, and the fight against racism." After this discussion, this co-worker took CHALLENGE for the first time.

The general sentiment of the majority of workers is that if we strike, we should fight to win, not return to work conquered without a fight. These discussions have provided the opportunity to push the sale of CHALLENGE as a way to sharpen the discussions about our contract and about fascism, and to show that, like all U.S. workers, we face cuts in our pensions and medical benefits to pay for imperialist oil wars. This fight is not only one against our boss, but against the whole bosses' state.

The political development of the workers who are regular CHALLENGE readers is clear. The conversations reach revolutionary political levels about many topics. For example, recently five workers met at lunch and one asked, "What are we going to talk about today?" We discussed the homeless, racism and religion. While different points of view were presented, ultimately a scientific analysis of society prevailed, as did the need for communist revolution. At the end, an older worker concluded, "It's time to go back to work, friends. Later we'll continue looking for scientific solutions to the problems of the world."

Expose Liberals' Anti-Immigrant `Good-Cop' Role

Recently we've been involved in a campaign to increase the hand-to-hand distribution of CHALLENGE at the schools where we work.

At one school's parent center, several parents and campus security aides talked about the unity we had in a struggle at school, and at the multi-racial demonstrations against the Minutemen.

Everyone received CHALLENGE. They saw the photograph of the demonstration at the Home Depot. We also noted how the bosses' media want to convince workers they're powerless in the face of the racists, while they use racist terror against immigrants to lower the wages of all workers. They want us to see the McCain-Kennedy amnesty/bracero bill as the "solution." The bosses always want workers to rely on liberal politicians as their "friends" instead of relying on our own organization.

This discussion skipped from English to Spanish because some parents didn't speak much English and others spoke no Spanish at all. The Spanish-speaking parents were reading CHALLENGE for the first time.

Meanwhile, an African American parent who has read the paper off and on for a year and a half -- she had been so interested in the article about the communist influence on Rosa Parks that she had sent it to her sister -- pointed out the word "Communist" on the CHALLENGE masthead. "This is really important. There are a lot of misconceptions about this word -- but it's a good thing."

The struggle against the Minutemen highlighted the importance of supporting the anti-racists charged with felonies for protesting against these fascists. Many Latino students are aware of the Minutemen. The politicians use these gutter racists to win workers to accept the new "guest-worker" and punitive "amnesty" programs.

We've been getting more CHALLENGES to students, emphasizing the potential power of immigrant workers in the factories and of all workers in organizing against this racist system. One young African American student comrade explained to a meeting of teachers state-wide how a student group at her school is organizing against the Minutemen and that an injury to one is an injury to all. It helped everyone to realize the potential of a united working class.

Discussions have also focused on the federal government's role in trying to win working-class youth -- especially immigrants and the children of immigrants -- to join the Army to fight for U.S. imperialism. We've linked the plans of the liberal politicians to the flood of publicity about the Minutemen, citing this as the "good-cop-bad-cop" tactic. The National Service Plan, the Dream Act and McCain-Kennedy -- which "puts immigrants on the road to legalization" -- are all part of the "good cop" plan to project the Federal government as youth's "protector" from the Minuteman fascists (the "bad cops").

Using CHALLENGE in our discussions with young people and winning them to distribute it to their friends will counter the bosses' plans to win these youth to patriotism. It will help them to fight for the working class, whether in the factories, in school or in the military.

Bolivia: Choosing One Imperialist Over Another Is Not Road to Workers' Power

On Jan. 22, Evo Morales was sworn in as Bolivia's first-ever indigenous-mestizo president. Having projected a radical image, can he fulfill the expectations of change that millions of oppressed Bolivians need and expect?

Bolivia is rich in natural resources and has the hemisphere's second largest natural gas reserves. Yet its 85% indigenous-mestizo population finds 64% living below the poverty line, 50% on less than $1 a day. That's the result of 300 years of brutal Spanish colonialism and 200 years of racist capitalist exploitation.

Bolivia's workers, especially the miners, have a proud history of mass, militant struggle against the racist rulers. The horrific racist oppression they face can only be smashed with a violent revolution led by a communist party that fights for communism. This definitely is not on Morales' agenda. In fact, his election is a smokescreen enabling the rulers to advance their class interests, while trying to make angry workers believe that capitalist "democracy" can meet their needs.

REVOLUTIONARY? OR CAPITALIST DEMAGOGUE?

Populist rhetoric, Che Guevara T-shirts and socialism in his party's name -- Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) -- made many think Evo represented a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. But he doesn't even proclaim to be a Marxist, much less a communist. MAS doesn't mention the word socialism anywhere except in its name. Morales's concept of socialism is not even the failed transition belt to communism of the old communist movement. A la Venezuela's Chavez, it's based on "cooperatives to end poverty."

Assuring the capitalists/imperialists who rule Bolivia, Morales said in a recent interview, "When it comes to Che Guevara .... I don't accept armed struggle. Maybe it was the way in the '50's and '60's, but we want a democratic revolution." His vice-president Linares made it even clearer, "We admit that Bolivia will still be capitalist in the next 50 to 100 years." In another interview, Morales said, "I do not want to expropriate or confiscate any assets. I want to learn from the businessmen."

EVO'S `NATIONALIZATION' NO THREAT TO IMPERIALISTS

The day before his inauguration, Morales was invested as leader in an ancient indigenous ritual. That night, in an hour-long meeting in his home with Thomas Shannon, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs, and U.S. Ambassador Greenlee, Morales pledged cooperation with Washington.

And to assure Brazilian bosses and the European imperialists, during the inauguration one of his ministers, Carlos Villegas, announced that "although Mr. Morales had threatened during the presidential campaign to nationalize the hydrocarbons sector, the new government would respect the property rights of foreign investors." (London Financial Times, 1/22/06).

He also said, that the oil companies "Repsol [Spain/Argentina] and Total [France] were willing to renegotiate their contracts to give a greater share of their profits to Bolivia. Petrobras [Brazil] has said it is prepared to accept lower profits."(Financial Times, 1/22/06).

He hopes to satisfy and calm his followers with these renegotiations and his "symbolic nationalization," which, he said, would "...consist of giving the ownership of the hydrocarbons first to the state when these are in the ground and then to the oil companies when the hydrocarbons have been extracted...."

IF MORALES IS NO THREAT, WHY HAVE U.S. RULERS DEMONIZED HIM?

U.S. imperialists fear mainly two things about Morales. First, that unfulfilled expectations, fostered by his irresponsible campaign promises to angry workers, might detonate a civil war in Bolivia, further destabilizing an already unstable strategic region. Second, that he will join the Brazil-led MERCOSUR bloc and eventually move Bolivia completely into the European imperialists' camp.

As it is, European imperialists and Brazilian capitalists are the biggest investors in Bolivia. They've invested some $3.5 billion in Bolivia's oil and gas industries and have gobbled up Bolivia's gas reserves. Spanish-Argentinean REPSOL and Brazilian Petrobras each own about 25 % of the gas reserves; French Total-Elf and British Gas another 14% each. U.S. Vintage Petroleum owns only 2.1%. With the 20% left to the state, Morales plans to reestablish the state energy company, in which the Chinese imperialists are expected to invest $1.5 billion. Petrobras also owns two refineries and a quarter of Bolivia's gas stations.

INTER-IMPERIALIST RIVALRY FUELS BRAZIL-U.S. DISPUTE OVER HEMISPHERIC CONTROL

As the European Union (EU) and Chinese imperialists increase their investments in South America, their need to bring the area under their direct control increases also. And as the struggle between the encroached imperialists (the U.S.) and the newcomers intensifies, so do instability, exploitation and military build-up to war.

The massive social unrest in Latin America has its roots in the chronic mass poverty, racism and unemployment ruthlessly imposed by the super-racist exploitation by all imperialists and local capitalists alike. Now some of these vultures are using it to attack U.S. imperialism in the region.

The worldwide hatred of U.S. imperialism is more than justified. But if this anger is not channeled into revolutionary action led by a communist party, these movements will always be nothing but pawns in the inter-imperialist dogfight.

Since the Soviet Union's collapse, former U.S. allies, especially the EU, have been moving more aggressively into the U.S. backyard. The EU has become Latin America's (all countries from Mexico south) second largest investor with a total stock of $192 billion, compared to the U.S.'s $284 billion. But the EU is by far the main investor in South America (all countries south of Panama) with a stock of $96 billion, exceeding the U.S.'s $67 billion. Besides the EU placing about 87% of its South American investments in MERCOSUR, it is MERCOSUR's and Chile's main trading partners. The EU is also Latin America's second most important trading partner, a trade that's more than doubled between 1990 and 2004.

This, and the emergence of China as a powerful trading partner and investor, coupled with the rising cost of oil, have made possible the survival of Cuba's Fidel Castro and the rise of demagogic politicians like Chavez, Brazil's Lula, Argentina's Kushner and now Evo Morales. Last year direct and indirect trade with China gave the Brazilian rulers a $54 billion surplus and enabled them to repay their entire debt to the U.S.-controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF). With help from Chavez's oil revenues, Argentina also paid off the IMF. Now, Chavez wants to create a South American energy bloc to sell energy to the highest bidder, especially to China. Therefore, Bolivia -- with its gas reserves -- is strategic to Brazil, Chavez's plan and to the U.S.

The ruling classes behind these politicians want to break the chains that bind them to the U.S. bosses. They're looking for more lucrative relations with other imperialists, who also need to control these markets, raw materials and cheap labor. Both butchers finance and foster these populist-nationalist movements that in no way threaten capitalism and only attack U.S. imperialism.

With possible similar scenarios in Peru and Ecuador -- and Chile being dependent on its neighbors for energy -- the balance of forces is inclining toward Brazil, MERCOSUR, the EU and Chinese bosses. Instead of freedom from oppression, those movements will lead to more racist exploitation and death on the imperialists' battlefields. Only the growth of the international PLP can insure that the struggle of our class brothers and sisters won't foist another capitalist butcher on them but will liberate them with communist revolution. This alternative can motivate the Bolivian workers and all workers to travel the decisive road to power.

Not Fooled by Chavez's Fake Revolution, Youth Joins PLP

(A friend wrote me the following letter. For many years I had been mailing CHALLENGE to his mother, which led to an intense conversation between him and me about politics, the state of the world and communism. Shortly after he wrote this letter, he joined PLP and has enthusiastically pledged to build it on his campus. Everything we do counts! -- A Comrade)

The talk we had stayed in the back of my mind for a very long time. I considered your arguments and reasoning constantly. It left a deep impression on me, more perhaps than you may have realized.

After my university classes in Sao Paulo (Brazil), I've been checking the PLP website every day at an Internet café. I've followed CHALLENGE-DESAFIO postings, and been working to understand the Party's theoretical pieces, especially on sexism and racism. I've also started a thorough self-study of dialectics with the pamphlets posted, and the PDF of "What Is Philosophy?"

I've only just begun to realize that the foundation of my knowledge of history (let alone Marxism!) is based on the same prejudices and preconceptions, learned in school and published virtually everywhere in the media and "left" and liberal publications. They taught me to fear communism and to judge the communists no differently than the Nazis. To a degree, I bought the myth that the "noble path" is to moderate my views and try to "change the system from within."

I wanted to write you for sometime, but now feel I must. Every day that passes compels me to take action, even if I'm studying abroad right now.

I spent a month in Venezuela, viewing the "Bolivarian Revolution" and staying in the horrifyingly large barrios that encircle Caracas and other spots in the interior. I now realize that the so-called "revolution" contains few, if any, of the essential qualities that can genuinely free Venezuela and the world, both practically and ideologically (especially ideologically!). Private property has not even been touched; most of Venezuela's 9.8% economic growth in the third quarter was carried by the private sector's massive explosion. Chávez just signed a new joint-exploration contract with Chevron, which I learned (from CHALLENGE) is being sued in Ecuador for dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste.

I'm concerned about how fast Chávez is capturing the imagination of the "left" while the fundamental contradictions in Venezuelan society have not been addressed. The "Bolivarian" movement is far too fractured and incoherent to present any kind of program at all, radical or reformist.

Nonetheless, while I attended the Youth Festival in Caracas, an organizer privately told us she thinks we're probably being monitored by the U.S. government through our e-mails. I was listening to her with another friend of mine, a labor organizer from New Jersey, who later told me his friends in the States had been arrested with suspension of habeas corpus, and their computers confiscated.

My friend had infiltrated a Minutemen meeting in New Jersey. Suddenly a PLP contingent stood up and disrupted the entire thing, really shaking up the place. While he isn't in PLP, another friend with him was held and questioned by police in New Jersey while we were in Venezuela.

When I return to the U.S., I want to continue the conversation we started this summer and talk about PLP. I'm really excited!

New Youth Party Member

LETTERS

STRIKE SPARKED WORKING CLASS

As part of building towards a communist revolution, our Party club made a collective effort to provide as much support as possible to New York's striking transit workers. The club members teach in separate schools so we were forced to take individual initiative in mobilizing strike support.

One member took students and teachers to the picket line near their school each day. Joining the smaller picket line enabled her to make strong connections with five workers. The strikers were happy to receive the donations she'd collected for them; to greet the students she brought with her; and to hear her communist ideas. One worker drove her students home.

Another member, relying on his close friends at his school, organized the writing of a letter. He and two other teachers helped do this. This collective struggle helped bring one friend closer to the Party and turned another acquaintance into a CHALLENGE reader. The collective work of team teaching during the strike sparked creativity within the teaching staff. One of the member's close friends used CHALLENGE articles in the classroom as part of a lesson on great strikes.

Another club member raised over $300 for the strikers. This far outdid the teachers union's request of a $1-per-teacher donation to the union. He also brought students to the picket lines. When they arrived there, the strikers were milling around. The appearance of the Party member and his students sparked the workers' enthusiasm to start a loud picket line. They offered their megaphone to the group, enabling the Party member to give a political speech that fired up the workers. This kind of leadership has made teacher discussions of workers' struggles commonplace at the school, advancing class consciousness.

Although another member was new to his school, he raised many issues with his colleagues. His leadership enabled the strikers to use the bathroom at another comrade's school. Serving the workers in this way created the basis for many good political conversations with the workers.

This strike opened many possibilities for Party work, and taught us some lessons on how to organize and take individual initiative as we seek a revolution that can destroy a system based more and more on fascism and endless wars.

Red Teacher

Transit Workers Reject Pro-Boss Leaders

While the rest of the labor movement is bowing to the bosses' demands for give-backs of pensions, health care and wages to pay for the estimated $1 trillion cost of the Mid-East oil war, 11,234 NYC transit workers voted to reject another give-back, sellout contract. Although the vote reflected only a slight majority, workers were facing a racist, anti-labor media that characterized them as "thugs" and "9/11 terrorists." Also, the union's executive board voted 37-4 for the sellout while imposing heavy fines on their own members for speaking against it. Transport Workers Union (TWU) members stood tall and defied the Taylor Law and the phony deal negotiated by the union leaders with the MTA bosses. The court has fined the workers $35 million collectively.

During the 1966 transit strike, I remember President Lyndon Johnson demanding similar give-backs and wage cuts "in the national interest" during another imperialist war, the U.S. invasion of Vietnam. TWU president Mike Quill said, in effect, to hell with your war and your no-strike Condon-Wadlin Law -- you're not taking transit workers to the poorhouse. We shut NYC down for 11 days and won not only needed wage increases and a pension but also amnesty from the no-strike penalties.

CHALLENGE was well-received and appreciated by almost all the workers I met during the strike and its aftermath -- on the picket lines, at rallies, meetings and throughout the transit system. Your paper's analysis of the contract's economics and the political framework that shaped its provisions was a much-needed perspective for transit workers. Your Party should not underestimate its influence in this struggle or let up on trying to build a base among these workers, who, despite the tremendous obstacles mentioned above, showed great courage and a fraction of the power and political understanding they possess.

They have an opportunity to use these qualities to build a new, strong leadership that can take on the fight against the supposedly all-powerful bosses and show them who really runs this city.

Retired transit worker

Workers Post Challenge on Token Booth

On my way to see a play with members of my mass organization, I passed a subway token booth. Taped against the booth's inside glass was a bright orange flyer reading, "Why Toussaint Screwed Us Again." It was an anti-sellout leaflet commenting on the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 President, Roger Toussaint, and his recent misleadership during the strike.

I had brought a CHALLENGE just in case my new friends got around to talking politics. I decided to give the paper to the token booth clerk, pointing to a page-three article with ideas similar to the leaflet. Pessimistically, I didn't think much of it and wondered whether I made the right decision to give my only copy of the paper to a stranger I probably wouldn't see again.

The next day, my girlfriend was walking past the same booth and stopped in her tracks. The orange leaflet was gone. In its place was the front page of CHALLENGE folded out. The paper took up so much space it was hard to see the clerk. My girlfriend called me on my cell phone and said, "We need more of what you gave to the worker."

I couldn't believe it. At best I thought the clerk would read the article I showed him. I never thought the CHALLENGE front page would be hanging up three shifts later at the main token booth of a train yard. Dozens of TWU workers pass there every day.

CHALLENGE hadn't been up when I returned home from the play the night before. I asked my girlfriend what the toll booth clerk looked like and it wasn't the guy to whom I'd given the paper. That means the original worker from the night before had shown it to other workers and a few of them decided to display it in the booth.

This small show of agreement with what Progressive Labor Party had to say about the strike doesn't mean we've made the needed ties with these workers. But if we follow up this kind of agitation with years of on-the-job struggle and develop deep social and political relationships, hopefully CHALLENGE will be the workers' flag in the next battle between the bosses and labor. I never saw that token booth clerk again but for now, I carry two papers with me -- just in case.

Red Straphanger

Widespread Support for Strike

Just after the NYC transit strike ended, two friends who had supported it sat and discussed the reactions of people we had spoken to about it -- friends, neighbors and passers-by. We were particularly struck by one fact: the very people who the mayor said would be hurt the worst and therefore wouldn't back a strike were the people who were the strongest supporters of the workers' action. Bloomberg's smear campaign against the transit workers didn't seem to work with the least advantaged workers. They understood that if the union had not struck, it would have no leverage to win a fair contract. The strike was their only weapon.

After walking from Queens into upper Manhattan each of the three strike days, a young woman from Eastern Europe, a single mother who works as a cleaning lady, said, "They shouldn't have gone back, they didn't win anything yet."

A retired union worker who walked back and forth to his volunteer job three miles from home noted that his union acceded to pension benefit cuts years ago and said that workers starting at his job now will retire on a pension one-fourth of his. They'll become the pensioned poor.

Several busboys walking from middle Brooklyn into Midtown Manhattan remarked that they don't have a union and that this strike helped them see why it would be a real important thing for them and their families.

The two friends who started this discussion know that unions were the best thing the working class ever won but we weren't able to hold on to that victory. The leadership was co-opted, the unions were busted and now less than 15% of the working class has one. We know we need to win that fight again, once and for all.

A retired NYC teacher

Reform Activists Open to Revolutionary Ideas

My friend and I were chatting with a new acquaintance at a mutual friend's party. She works in a coalition dealing with state-wide issues like health coverage and the minimum wage. She hoped that extending Medicaid to more under-insured workers would be a step toward state-wide universal health insurance. I explained why an important section of the ruling class needs to force insurance companies to give up their outrageous profits as middlemen in the health industry. She was especially interested when I said that the imperialists need to create the appearance of caring about low-income workers, while really rationing care, so they (or their children) can be won to fight the bosses' wars.

The discussion turned to the limits of what reforms can be won in the present war economy. She said sometimes people don't get involved because they think it's hopeless. I replied that I thought that it would take a revolution, not reforms, to get what workers need; therefore it's important to fight around these local issues in a way that would build a revolutionary movement. She agreed a revolution would probably happen eventually, and that it's important to do what we can now to ensure it will be led by "progressives," not religious fascists.

Our mutual friend reads CHALLENGE, so I'm asking him to show it to this woman. Maybe I've been too influenced lately by fear-mongering and repressive legislation, or maybe things are starting to change, because I'm just now realizing how many people really are open to PLP's ideas.

A Comrade

School Rules, Food Sickens Students

A student passed out in my classroom today. She had eaten only an ice-cream cone for lunch, and said she felt dizzy. She fell to the floor directly on her head and knocked herself unconscious. I asked the nurse to call an ambulance, but she said she didn't have the authority due to the new Chancellor's regulations. Only a principal can call an ambulance, and our principal delegated that authority to the head of the deans. The head dean is reluctant to call one unless a student stops breathing!

The student hadn't eaten in the cafeteria because she didn't want that food. Another student in my classroom became sick to her stomach from eating the cafeteria food. My school should read the book "Fast Food Nation." They're doing nothing about the quality of the food here.

The school administration has the audacity to tell students they need to eat better and provide valid reasons why they need to do so, but do nothing to provide for their needs to do just that. The vending machines, full of junk food, compete directly with the cafeteria's snack food section for the students' dollars.

How widespread is this regulation on ambulance calling? The school system is responsible for ambulance or health charges a student incurs at a hospital, but the capitalist system is sacrificing the health of our children and their nutritional needs to fund and fuel the U.S. imperialist war machine, and spending the blood of our children to fight it.

I look forward to working with the student PL'ers in this school to help organize a fight-back.

Red Teacher

What Are Workers' Real Values?

Workers are busy every day just trying to survive under this "living hell," capitalism, but we need to clearly focus on which values really motivate them.

Is it reform struggles around wages and benefits? Sure, we'd all like a few more dollars to live on, a better health plan and pension, but what motivates our co-workers deep down? Shall we appeal to reforms with narrow self-interest? Or to the values of a deeper humanity?

Several years ago, PLP members and their friends at MUNI -- the San Francisco Municipal Railway's transit system -- confronted and defeated the bosses' plan to institute a more fascist contract, highlighted by a two-tier wage system.

For several months, PLP members consistently distributed CHALLENGE, leaflets and got to know a number of bus drivers, resulting in some revealing discussions.

One day we asked several drivers, "What do you think of George and Martha's (the MUNI PLP'ers') leadership? One driver replied, "You can trust them to level with you." Another said, "You can't trust the others, the so-called union leadership." They'll make promises and sell us out to the management, under the table." A third worker said, "You can go to George and Martha. They're honest; they'll put all the cards on the table."

And so we got a glimpse of what our co-workers value most -- integrity, honesty and truthfulness.

Keep up the good work in CHALLENGE.

West Coast Comrade

Garment Workers Expose Bosses' Shameless Greed

"It's Christmas, and time for charity," said the supervisor in a garment factory where 90 of us work. The idea was for every worker to bring from $10 to $15 in products as gifts to a nearby homeless shelter. All the workers, mostly women who are paid the minimum wage, responded enthusiastically. "Even though we don't have much, at least we have work," said one worker. "We can give something to those who have nothing," "It doesn't hurt us to give them something, because we know what it is not to have anything," said another.

The bosses gave us some bags with the company's logo on them for the gifts we bought. The day before Christmas, the 90 workers, the supervisors and the bosses walked two blocks to the shelter. The bosses and supervisors took photos and videos showing the bags, the company logo and the people receiving the gifts.

Some workers became very angry. They explained to the homeless people receiving the gifts that they came from the workers, not the bosses; that the bosses were trying to look good at the expense and sweat of others.

Returning to the factory, there were many discussions about the bosses' shameless greed. They fill their pockets with hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, and all of it comes from the profits they make off our labor. The bosses don't have a tiny speck of "charity" when it comes to the workers. Since Christmas, several workers have been fired for coming late to work. The bosses' oppression and thirst for profits oozes out of every pore.

The bosses lie and say that workers only think of ourselves and our paychecks -- individualism. The opposite is true. Workers are motivated by a desire to improve living conditions not just of ourselves but of the whole working class. The bosses cynically try to use this for their own benefit.

These experiences help us understand the need to unite and learn to fight for a system where the workers don't have to depend on charity or exploitation, but produce to meet the needs of all workers worldwide.

A Garment Worker

No `American Dream' for this Transit Worker's Family

A young black transit worker thanked us for the CHALLENGE articles on the strike. He said workers pasted them up in many workplaces, with arrows pointing to the headlines, and were happy we wrote such positive stories. He thought we raised good questions about the strike's strategy, especially that it represented a fight against racism.

After discussing the economic aspects, he emphasized that the issue of respect was paramount, that the bosses treated them with disdain, writing them up for every insignificant "infraction." He was angry about how workers were treated in general. When he takes his daughter to the emergency room for treatment for her asthma, they're treated in a racist manner, sometimes forced to wait for hours and lectured about "not knowing how to care for her." With his rent rising, he has no chance of owning a home and reaching the "American Dream."

He feels his daughter has no future. While his own father was a transit worker who does own a house, he himself won't reach that point, so there's little likelihood his own daughter will be able to go beyond their present circumstances.

In a discussion about communism and revolution, he was open to the idea that the workers were paying for the problems of capitalism, that we had to look beyond the solutions presented by the union.

CHALLENGE seller

Redeye on the news

Junk-food profits boost diabetes explosion

Type 2 diabetes is sweeping so rapidly through America we need not waste time giving children bicycles. Just roll them a wheelchair....

We have created this monster by allowing trash food marketers to prey on our children....

An American child born in 2000 has 1 in 3 chance of contracting diabetes in his lifetime. An African American has a 2 in 5 chance. At current rates, every other Latina born in 2000 will get the disease. Fast Food soda and sugar snack companies are well represented in the Fortune 500, but the costs on the other end are staggering. (Boston Globe, 1/11)

Mass wiretaps: `virtually all' on innocents

In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans....

"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism..." (NYT, 1/17)

Biz `gifts' to docs just keep on growing

The gifts, drugs and classes that makers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices routinely give doctors undermine medical care, hurt patients and should be banned , a group of influential doctors say....

But Dr. David Blumenthal, an author of the article, said it was "not very likely" that many in medicine would listen to the group.

"I'm not very optimistic,"....

The drug industry spends tens of billions of dollars a year to woo doctors, far more than it spends on research... (NYT,1/25)

Big biz bribes judges who try their cases

...Mr. Delay's junket habit is something he has in common with the nation's judiciary....In 2000, the year of Mr. Delay's lobbyist-financed St. Andrews trip, nearly 100 federal judges engaged in distressingly similar behavior. These judges attended all-expenses-paid private seminars for judges held at resorts offering excellent golf, tennis, skiing and spa services. The trips were underwritten by monied interests out to influence judges to rule in favor of corporate interests on issues like environmental protection and liability for harmful products. (NYT, 12/20)

Slandering ex-slaves to justify Jim Crow

Eric Foner wrote "Forever Free" to combat what he calls our "sheer ignorance" of the 15 years between the Emancipation Proclamation and the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the South in 1877....

What could be worse than ignorance?

Horrible history: the distortions, misinformation and myths that passed for "the facts of Reconstruction" for nearly a century after 1877. In that history...was a "tragic era" of military occupation, corrupt state governments, heavy taxation, wasteful spending and, worst of all, "Negro rule": the enfranchising of ignorant, gullible, bestial black men. All seemed lost, until the Ku Klux Klan arose and expelled the carpetbaggers, dragged and scalawags back to the white side of the color line and put the former slaves in their place. Home rule was restored, the south redeemed.

That's not a caricature. That was Reconstruction at our finest universities...and it was Reconstruction in popular novels, histories and films, most notably D.W. Griffith's repugnant classic, "The Birth of a Nation." Woodrow Wilson, a political scientist and Princeton professor before he became president, viewed the film in the White House. It is "like writing history with lightning," he said, "and my only regret is that it is so terribly true."

It was terrible, but not true -- as African-Americans knew.... "The vast economic and political power of the South's white elite hung in the balance," he writes ....

Landowners and merchants wanted laborers to plant and pick their cotton -- on terms as close to those of slavery as they could get. (NYT, 1/29)

One way a free market ruins world health

...25 percent of all doctors in the United States are foreign medical school graduates. A large majority -- 60 percent -- come from the developing world, where doctors are scarce and countries are being destroyed by AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases....

By luring and keeping large numbers of immigrant doctors, the American medical establishment is reducing medical care where it is needed most. (12/14)

`Jarhead' Promotes Sacrifice for Imperialist War

Many label the Iraq War as this generation's Vietnam; and for many, Sam Mendes' "Jarhead" is this generation's anti-war film. The story is based on Anthony Swofford's book about his Marine service in the First Gulf War, in which he attempted to tell "the bad news about the way war is fought and why, and by whom for whom."

Like the book, the movie doesn't try to sugarcoat war. Unlike the book, however, it glorifies the "raw" side of war, depicting it as an "unfortunate, but necessary" campaign waged in "the larger interests" of the U.S. In this way, it hopes to win workers to "sacrifice" themselves for future wars waged in the ruling class's interest.

As the film starts, after the troops arrive in Iraq, and are on the way to their assigned posts, they begin discussing the politics behind the war. One Marine says the bosses and their corporations are behind the invasion. Immediately Troy, one of the Marine snipers, ends the conversation saying, "F--- politics. We're here. All the rest is bullshit."

This cynical statement sets the tone for the rest of the movie, that war is not political. The audience is supposed to forget the U.S. ruling class's profit motive behind its invasion of Iraq, and instead see imperialist warfare as something that happens "for the greater good of the nation."

In a very political way, however, the film spends much time presenting war as an auditory and visual entertainment spectacle. In one scene, the troops are watching a scene from "Apocalypse Now." In the crowded theater, they recite the lines word for word, anticipating the impending destruction of a small Vietnamese village. The scene glorifies the unity of the Marines forged in the anticipation of the racist murder of the "enemy." Death and destruction are presented as necessary complements to a shared sense of purpose and national identity.

In another scene, Sergeant Siek (played by Jamie Foxx) is sitting in the Iraqi desert, his face illuminated by burning oil wells. Foxx professes his unquestioning love for the Marines, saying, "Who else gets a chance to see shit like this?" Here, imperialism is seen as an adventure experienced only by a privileged few ("The few. The proud. The Marines.") In this way, the film acts as a recruiting video for working-class youth, reinventing imperialist invasions as "exciting," once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Throughout, the film uses sexism to portray the Marines as male warriors whose manhood is forged in the heat of battle. Women are either highly objectified or not depicted at all. Just as the liberal rulers are pushing the fascist idea of "sacrifice" for the greater good of imperialism, the film uses sexism to depict warfare as a right of passage where "boys become men" through shared sacrifice for "their" country. It's this message of patriotic "sacrifice" that will propel the next wave of U.S. imperialist invasions.

As the U.S. progresses toward fascism in the face of its declining economic and political power, and while its quagmire in Iraq drags on, the corporate media -- in order to build support for U.S. imperialism -- will no doubt continue to churn out films that encourage workers to "sacrifice" themselves. Only a PLP-led mass communist movement that takes control of politics, economics and culture can destroy the capitalist drive toward endless war and fascism.

Alito Hearing Cover for Intensifying Presidential Power

Workers have given a big yawn to the wall-to-wall media coverage of Bush's recent picks for the Supreme Court -- John Roberts (now Chief Justice), Harriet Meirs (withdrawn), and Samuel Alito. Whoever gets appointed will serve the bosses and use the courts to protect the rich.

But for the bosses, the fight is over how they will wield power against their billionaire rivals and the working class. Hidden beneath the squabbles over abortion and religion lie the real question; how much power does the President have?

Originally most power was in the hands of the states rather than the federal government. In Washington most power was in the hands of Congress rather than the President. But with the development of imperialism and rivalries on a world scale between major capitalist powers, the ruling class needed to be able to discipline itself and mobilize for war. From the 1950's to the '70's, the Supreme Court was used as a battering ram to centralize power and force through policies that the rulers wanted in order to discipline sections of the ruling class and blunt worker rebellions, like outlawing segregation or legalizing abortion.

But now the Bush team wants to use the court to uphold the theory of a "unitary executive." In Alito's words this means, "The President has not just some executive powers, but the executive power -- the whole thing." Alito, Meiers and Roberts all believe the courts should only limit the President's power in the most extreme cases. They're not really hard-liners on abortion or religion. It's their views on presidential power that all three have been pushing the envelope.

John Yoo, who teaches at the University of California-Berkeley, wrote the Justice Department memos justifying torture, secret prisons, imprisonment for life without any charges or court review. In his latest book, "The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11," Yoo says when the U.S. is at war, the President has the authority to imprison, interrogate and torture those believed to be associated with the enemy. During wartime, the President can regulate speech, search homes and spy on the population. He also says the President can start a war anytime he wants. All Congress does when declaring war is "recognize the state of affairs -- clarifying the legal status...rather than authorizing the creation of that state of affairs." Yoo cites the powers of European kings to declare war and says that the U.S. is at war whenever the President says so. Bush is free to declare war on "terrorists" and claim all the powers of a wartime president. Yoo also claims that no treaty or international law can limit the President's power.

Two weeks after 9/11, Yoo wrote, while at the Justice Department, "The centralization of authority in the President alone is particularly crucial in matters of national defense, war, and foreign policy, where a unitary executive can evaluate threats, consider policy choices, and mobilize national resources with a speed and energy that is far superior to any other branch."

This plan to centralize power is at the heart of many disputes within the ruling class. Consider the National Security Agency's wiretapping scandal. Who cares whether the NSA or the FBI does the wiretapping and what difference does it make if they have to fill out a form which is almost always rubber-stamped by a secret court? The point of exposing the NSA is to weaken Bush politically and block his plans to concentrate power. That's also what's behind all the corruption scandals (who would have thought that Congressmen take bribes?). This is a counter-attack by those who fear that the Supreme Court is going to let Bush do whatever he wants. While they were appellate judges, both Roberts and Alito upheld policies that Yoo rationalized. That is why Bush nominated them and what policies and actions they are likely to support on the Supreme Court.

Under Communism: War And Communism in Poland, 1944

Anna Louise Strong, a U.S. communist writer, entered Nazi-occupied Poland in 1944 with the Soviet Red Army during World War II. Her book, "I Saw the New Poland" (1946) shows how the National Committee of Liberation used many communist concepts to organize the population. She also noted the shortcomings of its nationalist politics, which helped promote the return to capitalism when the war ended -- this time with enterprises primarily owned by the state, but profit-oriented capitalism nevertheless.

In the liberated city of Lublin, the Marxist Polish Workers Party grew rapidly, working in the Committee to build a new society on the ashes of the old. Strong says, "What enabled the Committee to expand...was not money, or foreign recognition, but control of certain housing facilities...and certain stores of food....It induced the peasants to turn in food quotas for feeding the cities."

With food, shelter and an army at their back, "peasants and workers could come to congresses and schools" where mass organizations were built and political struggle encouraged. "Brilliant engineers and famous scientists could offer their services and the Committee could keep expanding to take them in. Always provided -- it was a big proviso -- they were patriots [sic] willing to work for their shelter and three meals in a government dining room."

The Committee organized on the communist principle "from each according to ability, to each according to need." Unfortunately (with hindsight), the Committee also organized on the capitalist principle of nationalism. Nationalism unites workers with capitalists within a particular country, and disarms workers in the class struggle against their exploiters/oppressors.

In Warsaw, while fighting continued, Army political workers held mass meetings, attended by thousands. One explained:

"You dodge across streets and you hunt up active citizens and the ones that are willing to work. You get them to clearing streets and pulling folks from under fallen houses and cleaning wells. You start with half a dozen members and then you get a chairman and a vice-chairman. Then more people join and you begin to divide into sections."

They distributed food, criticized and evaluated the work and started thousands of house and block committees. "You don't think you are getting anywhere, but when you sum it up like this, you see how much it is," one reflected.

Despite inspiring stories about fighting Nazis, escapes from concentration camps and the volunteer work of rebuilding, Strong, like many she interviewed, embraced both communism and nationalism. She did not see, as we can from her book and from hindsight, how nationalism and a united front with the capitalist bosses would destroy the seedlings of communism in Poland.

The Red-led National Committee of Liberation planned - with the Soviet Union's blessing -- to unite with the Polish capitalist government-in-exile in London. Though these capitalists opposed the Soviet Union before the war, and their army attacked anti-fascist partisans, the Committee thought it had to compromise with these enemies. They disastrously handed over the hard-won gains to a Provisional Government of National Unity.

Strong doesn't say what happened to the grass-roots organizations. She mentions that Poland's industrial base (the coal mines, steel mills and shipyards) would be government-run. Though called "socialist" on that basis, the capitalist-led National Unity government guaranteed that workers were never in control. Poland therefore was never in any sense communist. It was state-capitalist from the start and run primarily by the capitalists.

PLP has different goals. Imperialism's endless wars and inability to manage or prevent catastrophes create the need and the opportunity. In war-torn and devastated cities -- from Baghdad to New Orleans -- we'll organize people around communism, not nationalism or socialism. Workers, armed and organized, will take control of housing, food and the entire means of production. There will be no coalitions with our class enemies or building of socialism: we will fight for workers' power. "From each according to commitment, to each according to need" will not be a temporary emergency measure, but the basis of a fierce struggle for an enduring communist society.

Rulers Plotting: 5 Million Troop Invasion To Control Mid-East Oil?

• Oil is Behind it All

Angry Delphi Workers Show Up Auto Billionaires

Profits First, Safety Last Rules the Coal Fields

• Record Of The Sago Mine

a href="#Transit Strikers Collided with Rulers’ War Budget">"ransit Strikers Collided with Rulers’ War Budget

a href="#Auto Makers’ Rivalry Fires Thousands at Mexico Ford">"uto Makers’ Rivalry Fires Thousands at Mexico Ford

a href="#Hektoen Medical Workers’ Strike Defies Union Hacks">"ektoen Medical Workers’ Strike Defies Union Hacks

a href="#Could Transit Bosses’ Plans Be Any Clearer?">"ould Transit Bosses’ Plans Be Any Clearer?

• a href="#‘Greatest Threat To America’s World Role’? Medicare!">‘Gre"test Threat To America’s World Role’? Medicare!

a href="#Bankers Steal Workers’ Pensions to Make Profits, War">"ankers Steal Workers’ Pensions to Make Profits, War

• Pensions And The Trillion-Dollar War

a href="#Ideas in CHALLENGE Lead to Factory Workers’ Class Struggle">"deas in CHALLENGE Lead to Factory Workers’ Class Struggle

a href="#300 Anti-Racists Protest Fascist ‘Minutemen’">30" Anti-Racists Protest Fascist ‘Minutemen’

D.C. Winter Project Advances Communist Goals

Red Professors Fight for Communist Politics at Modern Languages Association Convention

El Salvador: Youth Take Lead At School for Red Politics

LETTERS

Katrina: Face of U.S. Fascism

Capitalism Holds New Orleans by the Throat

Profiteering From Hurricane Victims

Murders of Miners Have Long History

Transit Workers in U.S. and Iran: Same Enemy, Same Fight

Evolution: A Materialist Breakthrough

Airport Workers Fight Anti-Immigrant Racism

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

• Dems just want to polish up Fed snooping
• Behind 'ethnic' wars is oil or mineral $$
• Spy bio shows US plots vs. worlds rebels
• China kills ‘wonders’ of barefoot-doctor days
• Texas Rev. says US has slid into fascism
• ‘Syriana’ Is Sugar-coated Poison

UNDER COMMUNISM: Collectivity Among Soviet Women and Men Combat Pilots in World War II (Part 3)

In Memoriam: Mary Finney

Rulers Plotting: 5 Million Troop Invasion To Control Mid-East Oil?

By resuming their nuclear program while vowing to "wipe Israel off the map," Iran’s capitalist ayatollahs have provoked a diplomatic crisis threatening expanded U.S.imperialism -led warfare in the Mid-East. U.S. rulers desperately want the UN Security Council to slap sanctions on the Iranian bosses but are unlikely to get the rulers of China to agree.

China’s bosses view Iran as a major energy source and thus a strategic ally. Iran holds one-tenth of the world’s oil and is the second largest natural gas producer. In late 2004, Beijing and Teheran signed a $100-billion oil and gas deal. Iran’s nuke move also suits energy-hungry China’s need to weaken U.S. influence in the Middle East.

Washington promises to pursue every diplomatic avenue before resorting to armed force against Iran. But it insists that force may ultimately become necessary. Senator John McCain warned, "The military option is the last option, but cannot be taken off of the table," because "there’s only one thing worse than the U.S. exercising the military option, that is, a nuclear-armed Iran." (CBS, 1/15/06)

McCain’s "option" involves U.S. or Israeli air strikes on Iranian nuclear plants. But even before such action, the impasse could spark intensified fighting in Iraq.

Iran’s Capitalist Mullahs ‘Principle Winner’ in Saddam Demise

In a Jan. 12 speech, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, said Iran’s Shiite theocracy had exploited the chaos and political vacuum in neighboring Iraq and had become the "principal winner" after the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime. "For most purposes, Iranians own the south," he said, referring to the oil-rich region where Shiites form an overwhelming majority. A harsh U.S. response to Teheran — sanctions or bombing raids — could cause pro-Iranian Shiites in Iraq to rebel against the U.S. presence there.

Should such a scenario cause Iraq to fall into anti-U.S. hands, the dominant wing of U.S. capitalists envisions a massive re-invasion of the entire Persian Gulf region. On Oct. 19, Col. Wilkerson spoke to an applauding audience at the liberal, Rockefeller- and Soros-funded New America Foundation think-tank. He said, "If we leave [Iraq] in a way that doesn’t leave something there we can trust, we will [have to] mobilize the nation, put five million men and women under arms and go back and take the Middle East within a decade."

Wilkerson noted that before Gulf War II, Powell had spoken of an all-out invasion targeting Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq that would have taken years to prepare. " We had a discussion in policy planning about actually mounting an operation to take the oilfields in the Middle East, internationalize them, put them under some sort of U.N. trusteeship and administer the revenues and the oil accordingly." But Bush & Co. pulled the trigger in April 2003, aiming the gun solely at Baghdad.

Niall Ferguson, a Harvard professor and frequent speaker at the Rockefeller-dominated Council on Foreign Relations, thinks the Iran standoff could prove to be "the origin of the next world war," eventually pitting the U.S. directly against China. He wrote an article in London’s Sunday Telegraph (1/15/06) from the viewpoint of a future historian. It began, "By the beginning of 2006, nearly all the combustible ingredients for a conflict — far bigger in its scale and scope than the wars of 1991 or 2003 — were in place."

Ferguson pretends to look back on an exchange of nuclear missiles between Iran and Israel in 2007. After that came "the subsequent spread of the conflict as Iraq's Shiite population overran the remaining American bases in their country and the Chinese threatened to intervene on the side of Teheran." The only way to avoid such a disaster, says Harvard’s Ferguson, is a pre-emptive U.S. strike against Iran.

Oil is Behind it All

U.S. ruler’s current predicament with Iran and the scarcity of available responses underscore a shift in military policy born of political weakness. From 1953 to 1979, the U.S. relied on its "twin pillars," Iran and Israel, to police its Mid-East oil empire. But ever since the U.S. has had to use its own troops.

The U.S. had installed the Shah of Iran in a CIA-backed coup and armed his regime to the teeth. But when the ayatollahs grabbed state power (and oil) for themselves, Jimmy Carter uttered his famous doctrine: Persian Gulf oil was a "vital interest" of the United States; the U.S. would counter any nation’s attempt to seize it with direct military action. Carter began, and Reagan continued, a huge U.S. naval build-up in the Gulf. Bush, Sr. sent 700,000 U.S. troops into Kuwait and Iraq. Clinton ordered the Air Force to bomb Iraq. Bush, Jr. invaded Iraq again. Now, with the old pillars threatening to annihilate each other, U.S. rulers are compelled to contemplate the mobilization of 5,000,000 soldiers.

The scenarios above may or may not come to pass. Nevertheless, the various nations’ rulers’ ruthless competition for oil’s "geopolitical leverage" make them plausible. We can’t predict specific events. But we can and must constantly point out that when imperialists prattle about diplomacy in public, behind the scenes they’re planning for war. Putting into practice the red politics in CHALLENGE is the answer to imperialist war.

Angry Delphi Workers Show Up Auto Billionaires

DETROIT, MI, Jan. 8 — Today about 500 workers from Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, Toledo, Kokomo and other cities, joined by 20 workers from Windsor, Ontario, demonstrated at the opening of the Detroit International Auto Show. Most were Delphi workers protesting the largest parts supplier’s attempts to cut wages and jobs by two-thirds. The rally also targeted plant closings and health care concessions at GM and Ford, and among Detroit City workers, who also participated.

In one sense, the rally had much in common with the victims of the recent West Virginia mine cave-in. These auto workers are caught in the economic cave-in of a rapidly changing world, poking around in the dark, desperately looking for a way out. The main reason they’re in the dark is because they share much of the political outlook of the UAW leadership. The latter did not even show up or organize anyone to attend, even though UAW headquarters at Solidarity House is just blocks away.

For one thing, there were more American flags than black workers, not a good sign. One young worker carried a sign that said, "Keep the Profits Here at Home." Another held a sign that read, "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet," but Chevrolet was written in red Chinese characters.

These workers and others have bought the "big lie" that all the auto manufacturing jobs are leaving the U.S., mainly to China. This is the UAW’s argument, and on the surface it could appear that way. After all, GM just passed Volkswagen as the largest automaker in China and just tripled its investment in India. Meanwhile, its closing 12 plants, eliminating 30,000 jobs and ripping concessions out of the hides of active and retired workers here, while Toyota, Mercedes and Hyundai are growing.

But looks can be deceiving. Last year the U.S. market sold 16.9 million cars and trucks produced by 1.1 million autoworkers, which means there are about as many U.S. autoworkers as there were 30 years ago, producing about the same number of cars. But they aren’t mainly Ford and GM workers anymore. GM and Ford and are losing market share and the UAW its membership. GM’s share is the lowest since the 1920’s, and the UAW has failed to organize one transplant from Asia or Europe. The parts suppliers are now more than 50% non-union.

As for the GM and Ford jobs in Asia, they didn’t exist before, because there was no market there. All the patriotic "Buy American — Save American Jobs" talk has left the UAW leadership and those that swallow its line, defenseless in a world where cars are produced everywhere, by many players, and the potential markets of China and India draw factories like giant magnets.

This struggle in auto reflects the sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry shaping events in the world. Nationalism, which has never advanced the revolutionary communist movement, is more destructive today than ever. This situation cries out for a mass PLP, from Detroit to Cuautitlan to Beijing, based among industrial workers, and on the principle, "Workers of the World, Unite!" That’s the light that will lead workers out of the darkness and to power. Slowly but surely, with patience and a sense of urgency, that process is underway.

Profits First, Safety Last Rules the Coal Fields

The death of twelve miners in the Sago Mine was no "accident." It was the predictable result of billionaire capitalist Wilbur Ross’s cut-it-to-the-bone-and-milk-it-for-all-its-worth management.

The latter is symptomatic of how the U.S. ruling class must attack workers in a period when its need to control oil supplies drives it into imperialist wars in the Middle East, killing tens of thousands of Iraqi workers and U.S. GI’s while sending miners here to an early grave.

Under capitalism’s profit system, even well-run mines are frightening places. The average Appalachian mine seam is less than five feet high. Some barely reach 20 inches!

Generally, coal mines have aged safety equipment and profit from lax enforcement of feeble federal and state "safety" rules. "Almost every…piece of safety equipment is nearly identical to those used more than 20 years ago." (NY Times, 1/10/06). Had the Sago miners had hand-held radios, they could have been directed safely out of the mine, instead of turning away from the exit because they believed their escape path was blocked — which it was not. Some miners say they must accept unsafe working conditions or become jobless.

Miners die instantly from roof falls, electrocutions and explosions, as well as from black lung disease, which still slowly kills 1,000 miners annually. The technology to prevent it has been available for 100 years, but Bruce Watzman, VP of the bosses’ National Mining Association arrogantly remarked: "We’re not in the self-rescuer manufacturing business." (NY Times, 1/10/06) 

Record Of The Sago Mine

Horizon Natural Resources (HNR) had owned several mines, including Sago. With HNR in bankruptcy, in September 2004 a federal bankruptcy judge allowed it to terminate its union contract with the United Mine Workers. Ross’s International Coal Group (ICG) took over the mine last November. (An ICG member had been on Horizon’s Board of Directors.)

An-eleven week safety review of the Sago Mine, ending 12/22/05, revealed 46 violations of federal health and safety rules, including failures to safeguard against roof falls and to control methane. With fines set at $250 per violation, fines were cheaper than compliance; blood was part of the bottom-line equation.

Ross makes his millions by finding bankrupt industries where workers’ benefits like health coverage and pensions can be shed via bankruptcy courts. Before concentrating on coal, Ross made untold millions off the backs of steel workers. His ISG bought Bethlehem and LTV Steel and was able to lower wage scales and dump health and pension costs. He made deals with the steel workers’ union to stay open, or reopen mills, based on this cheaper labor.

Yet Bruce Raynor (of the UNITE-HERE union and the "Change to Win Coalition") says, "I really think the future of domestic manufacturing is people like Wilbur Ross." (NY Magazine)

Murderous conditions will exist in the mines and elsewhere as long as capitalist society exists. Loss of pensions, health coverage and union pay rates are sweeping the U.S. We don’t need a stinking system that forces us to choose between job safety and a job, that won’t provide decent health care or a secure retirement after lifelong work. Ultimately, only a worker-run communist society is the answer.

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NEW YORK CITY. Jan. 18 — "We did not strike to give more and get less, but that’s what happened," transit worker Richard Watson told the NY Times (1/10) after a meeting called by union president Roger Toussaint to urge workers to accept what amounts to a wage-cut contract agreed to by him and the MTA bosses. There is a lot of anger among NYC’s 33,000 rank-and-file transit workers who are voting on this agreement that ended the militant 3-day strike which shut down the world’s largest transit system.

The proposed 10.5% wage "increase" over 37 months is more than wiped out by the introduction of health care payments, fines of 6-day’s wages and an expected 3.5%-per-year rise in inflation (10.5% over three years).

The fact that the workers defied the anti-strike Taylor Law and refused to sacrifice for the bosses’ war budget turned the strike into a mass political anti-racist struggle — something missing for many years in the U.S.

This defiance of the rulers’ state power scared the bosses, particularly in this age of endless wars and a police state. Once workers start thinking — and acting — against the bosses’ government, they become more open to the communist idea of fighting beyond reforms and for workers’ power. Our Party’s ideas were welcomed by the strikers; thousands of communist leaflets and CHALLENGES were distributed during the strike.

As one worker told a PL’er at a Manhattan bus depot picket line, "The bosses are the real criminals. Look what they did to the Enron, Northwest and GM workers. They cut our wages and steal our benefits and then call us ‘thugs’ for fighting back. Workers are never safe."

Precisely. No matter how hard workers fight within the limits of capitalism — for reform gains — "workers are never safe" from the bosses’ attacks to take away any gains.

This strike was even more significant occurring as it did during a murderous imperialist war which could cost over a trillion dollars, (see page 4) money which comes from the cutbacks in pensions, wages and health care.

Finally, this strike was forced by an angry, militant rank and file which is predominantly black and Latin, workers who have suffered — and fought against — racism their entire lives. Another reason the bosses are ready to heap lies of "thuggery" and "selfishness" on the strikers: the rulers fear the leadership that black and Latin workers can give to the entire working class — polls indicated 75% of the city’s black workers backed the strikers. The rulers want to split white workers from uniting behind that kind of militant leadership.

After ending the strike with a lousy projected settlement, Toussaint is pushing the rank and file to accept it. Toussaint doesn’t act this way because he fears jail or fines (although that might be a factor). He plays this accommodating, sellout role — as do all the city’s union misleaders who urged him to call off the strike — mainly because he and they defend the capitalist system that is stacked against the working class.

We must support the workers if they do reject this sellout. But most important, workers must realize that as long as the bosses hold state power and control the courts, cops and media, we won’t be free from their racist system of wage slavery. Building a mass communist leadership among workers and fighting for a new society without bosses is the only way out of this dark endless tunnel. Putting into practice the red politcs in CHALLENGE is the answer to imperialist war.

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CUAUTITLAN, MEXICO — Recently current and laid-off Ford workers met with PLP members here. We remembered previous struggles we waged with whistles and yells; we opposed Ford’s attempts to get us to support their production plans that would mean more layoffs and increased workloads. One worker recalled disagreeing with us then, believing that Ford’s plans would bring more jobs.

Now he sees we were right. The company’s plans made more workers jobless, and subjected those remaining to huge workloads. He said workloads and hours are so difficult that sometimes he wants to quit, even though jobs are scarce.

These workers, and many others, know that the auto industry is in a worldwide crisis and that the only way Ford can survive is by exploiting workers to the maximum. They also understand that unemployment and exploitation are increasing as Ford, Volkswagen, GM, Nissan, Toyota and all the world’s auto companies fight for markets, resources and cheap labor, from North America to China.

"The most important thing is our people" — that’s always been Ford’s hypocritical cry, but the only thing these bosses and all capitalists really care about is maximizing profits. That’s the essence of capitalism and is evident in the countless arbitrary technical shutdowns and the layoffs of thousands of workers. In 1990 there were almost 7,000 Ford workers at the Cuautitlan plant. Today about 500 remain, working under increasingly brutal workloads with less benefits.

Recently Ford announced it was closing six plants in North America, including the bus assembly plant here, eliminating 30,000 jobs in all. This is the result of fierce international competition, especially from Asian rivals like Toyota, which is grabbing a large market share from GM and Ford in the rich North American market. GM, still the world’s largest auto company, is closing 12 plants and also eliminating 30,000 jobs.

Ford’s new management reorganization will cut another 4,000 salaried jobs. The auto bosses’ competition for market share is sharpening. To stay in the race, Ford must convince workers to support its production changes. The bosses know the only way to survive is to super-exploit the workers, here and worldwide. Supporting the bosses’ production plans won’t guarantee our jobs. Even workers who were company favorites also lost their jobs.

We can’t expect the sellouts who run the union to defend us, since they always defend Ford. In the long run, the bosses will resolve their crisis of overproduction and sharpening competition through war, using racism as their main weapon.

As long as capitalism exists, our lives will be subject to the decisions of the bosses and of their competition for maximum profits. That’s why the working class needs to organize in a mass international PLP.

We plan to spread CHALLENGE to more workers here. This way, we can show how economic crises and the bosses’ fascism expose their system, which will build revolutionary communist consciousness among workers. We must destroy this system of exploitation and build a communist society which eliminates wages, bosses, racism, sexism, nationalism and the crisis of overproduction. "Long Live Communism!"

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CHICAGO, IL Jan. 11 — Today about 120 Hektoen workers took part in a one-day strike at the CORE Center, across the street from Stroger Cook County Hospital. About 30 County workers, also in contract negotiations, joined the picket lines on their lunch break.

The Hektoen strike is a continuation of what could be the start of something big. It follows on the heels of the three-day NYC transit walkout, where 34,000 black, Latin and white workers waged an illegal strike against attacks on their pensions and health care. It continues a mini-strike wave at Lockheed, Boeing, Northwest Airline mechanics and others. It follows a demonstration of almost 500 GM-Delphi workers at the opening of the Detroit Auto Show, and could set the stage for a bigger strike of County and Hektoen workers together.

More workers are in a fighting mood as a result of the deteriorating oil war in Iraq, the mass racist terror that is following Hurricane Katrina and the endless attacks on health care, pensions, wages and jobs. Hektoen workers are striking against racist budget cuts, aimed mainly at the patients they serve. They’re refusing to accept a war contract that attacks their own health care while they’re on the front lines of the fight against HIV/AIDS and TB, diseases that thrive on racism and capitalist poverty. Hektoen is funded mainly by CDC (Center for Disease Control) grants which are being diverted away from public health to Homeland Security bio-terrorism.

To reach this one-day strike, Hektoen workers overwhelmingly rejected a tentative agreement between SEIU Local 20 and the bosses and then voted almost unanimously to authorize a strike. The bosses imposed the rejected contract, and the union leadership has thrown obstacles in the workers’ path every step of the way.

The union gave Hektoen a 10-day strike notice, so they could rearrange their clinic appointments. The notice had a typographical error, dated January 2005 instead of 2006, so two days before the strike management told workers the strike was "unauthorized." The union leaders then informed the strike committee that, "We don’t have the laws on our side; there’s the possibility that workers might be fired."

The workers shot back, "We’re not asking for permission. The strike is on!"

The day before, the local president tried to convince us to "reschedule" the strike, but we weren’t buying it. The real leadership has emerged from the workplace, not the downtown union offices.

The strike was very spirited. Every picketer received a PLP leaflet and many got CHALLENGE. The union has no plan to get the bosses back to table. They’re hoping we’ll draw the wrong conclusions and say, "See, there’s nothing more we can do," and accept the imposed contract. We see it as the beginning of a long struggle that can escalate to a strike of County and Hektoen workers together against racist budget cuts that are financing the $6 billion-a-month war in Iraq. We want a world where our patients will not have to beg for health care and the workers that serve them will not fear getting sick because treatment is unaffordable.

In order to reach that point, we need more workers reading and distributing CHALLENGE, more attending PLP events and participating in other struggles. We have a long road ahead of us, but we’re on the right track.

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"This is from the transit company website. Take a look." A worker held out a copy of a Board of Directors’ agenda item authorizing over half a million dollars for a labor consultant to help the transit bosses negotiate three contracts expiring this summer. Everyone understood the company wasn’t spending the money to increase our wages and benefits. So much for the illusion that management would leave us alone, after provoking strikes over pensions and medical in the last two contracts.

Raising Communist Ideas

A week later many workers watched the New York City strike. One asked, "This is going to affect us, isn’t it?" Several workers wanted to meet to discuss the latest developments in southern California and on the East Coast.

At previous meetings we’ve tried to connect the sacrifices forced on workers at United Airlines, GM and Delphi to the competition U.S. companies face globally, as well as discussing the war budget. With the holidays approaching a meeting was set up right after Christmas lunch.

The bus was over half full as 20 workers discussed the gutsy transit workers who broke the anti-strike law in New York. A friend brought copies of a PLP flier supporting the strikers. We put one inside CHALLENGE for everyone on the bus.

We discussed the serious situation we’re in. "If the company is in trouble, maybe we should ask for nothing in the new contract and just try to hold on to what we’ve got," a concerned worker commented. "At least until the war is over and the economic picture improves." This man has a newborn son. Someone asked, "How old do you think your baby boy might be by the time things will have turned around for the USA?"

The Party’s aim is to make crystal clear to workers the depths to which U.S. bosses are preparing to drive us to maintain their world dominance. They must wage war wherever their profit interests are threatened — especially in the Middle East — for many years to come. The profit system makes imperialist war inevitable. We aim to help mobilize workers to fight these coming attacks with a clear view of the stakes in this fight

a name="‘Greatest Threat To America’s World Role’? Medicare!"></a>"Greatest Threat To America’s World Role’? Medicare!

And how will imperialism’s "vast military deployments" be paid for? U.S. rulers and their liberal politicians want "American taxpayers to keep paying for it…Either social security and Medicare shrink or the Pentagon shrinks." (Foreign Affairs column, New York Times, 1/4/06) Could the big bosses spell out their war plans any more clearly?

A system planning to sacrifice so many for the profit of so few should not continue to exist. Only the working class armed with communist ideas in the factories, in mass transit that carries millions to their jobs in the large cities and revolutionary soldiers in the military can take power from this murderous class of capitalist billionaires. We can organize a revolution. From the black smoke and blood of their oil wars we can build a communist world.

Workers will take communist ideas as their own by steadily increasing the number of CHALLENGE networks of readers and sellers, and using these ideas to sharpen the class and political struggle against the union misleaders. With transit workers asking for more meetings and more workers reading CHALLENGE, the way forward is becoming clearer.

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Whether it is an Enron-type crisis or a New York City transit strik, we’re now forced to look at pension systems we once thought only experts could analyze.

Two things stand out immediately. First, if wealth is power, these pension funds show the working class might very well be sitting atop a Mount Everest of potential power. But in reality it shows workers having as much power as a snowball in hell. The contrast couldn’t be sharper.

In "Banking on Death," Robin Blackburn writes, "There are thousands of pension funds worth over $1billion [each], with dozens in the United States worth more than Bill Gates." Pension funds account for over half the value of the world’s stock markets — some $13 trillion! Never mind having "a voice at the table," as the AFL-CIO keeps begging for; with wealth like this we should control the table!

In reality, of course, we control next to nothing. Investment bankers and brokers (capitalists or their close friends) manage our funds and, through a battery of legalities, strip the policyholder of any influence.

In the 1980’s and early ’90’s, for example, these funds were used to finance junk bonds. A type of speculator, known as a corporate raider, would buy a profitable company. The aim wasn’t to run the company but to cash in by selling off its operations as quickly as possible. Since these speculators lacked sufficient funds to buy these companies outright, they borrowed huge sums from other (institutional) investors. Pension funds were a ready source.

Often the end result of these corporate raids would be that a big company is broken up into smaller franchises. With each sale, the junk bondsman would skim off a profit and repay part of the loan from the institutional investor. Each new owner of a smaller franchise, of course, would look for a new labor contract, leading to worker layoffs, cuts in wages and benefits, speed-up and so on. The Greyhound strike of the 1980’s grew from one of these junk-bond raids. In short, pension funds were mobilized to impoverish the working class.

This money could have been used to build subsidized housing, recreation centers, or health clinics for retired members. Nothing says they must be invested in the stock market. Nothing, that is, except the relative absence of communist ideas, which point out how workers should develop political goals in our own interests. The fact is the bosses’ legal system makes sure vast sums of money are never put at the disposal of the working class. In part, that's why the rulers worry so much over who sits on the Supreme Court.

How these funds are used has now become more acute. Today, pensions have surfaced as an issue because U.S. capitalism must pay for a costly series of imperialist wars. The main capitalist grouping can no longer afford to put these vast sums at the disposal of just any capitalist or corporate raider. Today, they must be channeled into the government’s war coffers.

Yesterday, our pension funds — controlled by capitalists — were used to finance the impoverishment of millions. Now they will be used to finance the murder of millions. Some might say that even our retirement plans make a powerful argument for communist revolution.

Pensions And The Trillion-Dollar War

The demand by the NYC transit bosses to make pensions more costly for the workers highlighted the claim nationally by governments and private employers that pension costs are skyrocketing. They want to cut back, eliminate or replace workers’ pensions with 401(k)s — which absolve employers from committing to defined future pension payouts. NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg wants to cut or make pensions more costly for all city workers.

But who created this "crisis"?

In 1981 pension payments claimed 24% of NYC’s budget. In 2000, it had sunk to ONE percent! Huge returns from pension fund investments in a booming stock market led many local and state governments and private bosses to stop contributing to pension funds.

At the height of the boom, NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani diverted more than $800 million from the pension system to finance tax cuts. But even as City Hall stopped paying, workers still were required to fork over at least 3% of their wages into the pension system.

Starting in 2003, when the City increased its pension contributions, it still amounted to only 8% of the total budget, one-third of the 1981 percentage.

So when the bosses cry "broke" on pensions, they’re hiding the fact that they didn’t pay anywhere near their share for nearly two decades. Now they expect the workers to make up the difference for this robbery, or take a huge cut in their pensions for which they worked all their lives on promises they were living the "American Dream."

Yes, nationally there’s a big pension problem, created by a system dependent on the boom-and-bust stock market for income and the bosses’ commitment to financing a trillion-dollar expense for imperialist war. Conservative columnist Paul Craig Robert questioned the competency of the White House "when a $70 billion war [in Iraq] became a $2 trillion war." These figures are based on a recent study by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia U.) and Linda Bilmes (Harvard).

Where will they get these trillions? Even as they borrow hundreds of billions (incurring huge interest to bondholders for those loans), to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and balance the budget, look out private and public pensions, Social Security, Medicare and workers’ wages! Capitalism always takes its profits and war costs out of workers’ hides.

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About 40 workers in my factory, angry over the amount of "mandatory" overtime forced on us, confronted our shop manager. When 40 workers stop production for an hour, the boss realizes we’re not producing profits. Our immediate goal was met: the hours were reduced, temporarily. But the important lesson here is that profits are the bosses’ only concern. When the workers collectively stood together in solidarity, the bosses had to listen.

One worker close to me said, "This is all because of you." This was good in the sense that when the bosses attack, workers know to turn to the ideas of PL. But I pointed out there was one woman in particular who really took charge and made sure that everyone responded. She realized it takes more than one person to pull off something like this. Even one of the bosses’ snitches told me he had never seen this before.

My club’s main focus has been increasing ties and winning more CHALLENGE readers among industrial workers, with the goal of building unity around communist ideas. Since we average 60 hours per week at work, not a lot of people were easily able to find time to socialize with co-workers off the job. However, a group has begun to take shape, although development within the group is uneven.

One worker, Chris, was pretty quiet and didn’t seem to trust too many people. But after a few discussions we ate breakfast after work one morning, to hang out. Once outside the workplace it was easier to become better acquainted. We’ve now been to each other’s homes several times for dinner. He invited me to go camping with him, another co-worker, and a large family that does this annually.

While there we talked about the war, Katrina (which happened while we were camping), and about how children are raised under capitalism. This enabled me to introduce him to CHALLENGE. He didn’t snatch it right out of my hands, but he didn’t run away either.

After numerous discussions of the Party’s ideas since then, Chris gladly takes a copy every issue. Now I take him two copies because the last time I asked him about an article he said he hadn’t read it, adding, "My wife took it."

Since then, after many pot lucks on the job, picnics in the park and dinners with more workers, friendships have developed based on respect and trust. Thanks to these relationships and workers’ class anger, those 40 workers confronted the boss.

Chris and I were both facing the contradiction between the individual and the collective. My commitment to intensify my political work sharpened this contradiction, indicating that I hadn’t been making the Party primary.

Chris cynically viewed people as "lazy," which was why "they didn’t move up." He said if he was able to "move up on his own" it meant anyone could "if they weren’t so lazy." When I asked him how he reached his position, he told me how a co-worker stuck her neck out for him, talking to the head of that department, and still had to convince the boss to give him a shot.

It was easy to point out that he hadn’t gotten the position by himself. Then I asked him if he thought the shop could exist if everyone "moved up" to his position and no one was left to do the other jobs. This is one of many conversations that have led to him participating in more collective activities, such as the pot lucks and the picnics.

We both have a long way to go, but with time, practice and consistent evaluation we can build a bigger network of CHALLENGE readers/sellers/writers as a stepping stone to our bigger goal of recruiting to the Party and building for communist revolution. These practical experiences have convinced me of the need and the possibilities of increasing this CHALLENGE network.

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GLENDALE, CA., Jan. 7 — PLP members joined about 300 people to demonstrate against the racist Minutemen who were protesting a day laborers' center across the street from Home Depot here. Many laborers joined the action. The angry protestors confronted the Minutemen. They saw clearly how racist provocateur Joe Tuner would station himself amid a group of demonstrators as five or more police squad cars would pull up ready to arrest anyone who laid a hand on him. This led many (who we didn't know) to take up the chant, "The cops, the courts, the Minutemen, all are part of the bosses' plan."

This was the title of our PLP leaflet which detailed the role of the Minutemen in helping the rulers push for more "border security" as part of Homeland Security. In addition, coming immigration bills will be advanced as "helping" immigrants get on the "road to legalization" which, for many, will include joining the military. Over 100 demonstrators took CHALLENGE, including many of the day laborers. The crowd took up the class-conscious chants of "Las luchas obreras no tienen fronteras "and "La clase obrera no tiene frontera." (Workers' and their Struggles Have No Borders.")

We also talked with many about the coming trial of two anti-racists facing a racist frame-up for protesting the speech of Minuteman leader Jim Gilchrist at a meeting of the infamous CCIR (California Coalition for Immigration Reform, initiator of Proposition 187 and racist attacks on immigrants for decades). At that one, known racist Hal Netkin ran his car into demonstrators and wasn't charged with any crime, while anti-racists face felonies for merely protesting.

Unionists, churchgoers, students and teachers are all raising money to help defend these anti-racists. (More next issue)

D.C. Winter Project Advances Communist Goals

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This area’s youth leadership led a Winter Project during semester break to develop ourselves through intense study and by spreading communist ideas. We wanted to counter the ruling-class ideological domination of our high schools and colleges by building the Party and strengthening our knowledge. We had to confront the contradiction between reform and revolutionary work: building a mass party capable of seizing state power, destroying its incorrigible institutions and keeping it communist.

The Metro Transit Struggle

Metro workers helped lead discussions about revolutionary ideas related to the NY transit strike. Armed with CHALLENGE and a flyer tying the NY strike to D.C., four of us spoke about communism to Metro workers at bus stops. We then rode the bus driven by a comrade who gave us a tour of his route, explaining gentrification, racism and police brutality while we distributed literature to welcoming riders. Our driver comrade remarked on how he could see everyone reading CHALLENGE in his rear view mirror, and said, "It’s beautiful. I wish you all could see what I see right now." One woman was so enthused by the paper that she said we need to get this information into her church. She gave us the name of her church and its pastor, and encouraged us to distribute literature there.

The Hampton Struggle and the MLA

Hampton University students told their story of repression by academic officials (see CHALLENGE, 1/4). As a result of a reform-versus-revolution discussion, they’re considering developing a paper distribution and discussion network in their dorms. The Winter Project also supported our comrades in the Modern Languages Association by agitating outside the convention, handing out 400 PL flyers specifically targeting the MLA issues, and selling 60 CHALLENGES.

Stalin and the Soviet Union

Some interested students requested a discussion of the Stalin-era USSR. Based on several readings, PLP’s position became much clearer. PLP rejected the cult of the individual decades ago. Our job is to advance communist theory and practice to the working class, not glorify some "great man." PL is often labeled "Stalinist" because we insist that anti-communist lies and distortions about the period when Stalin led the Soviet Union are vicious attempts by the ruling class and its intellectual lapdogs to keep workers oppressed by hiding their true history. We’re proud of this position! We defend the Stalin-era government for its many achievements, while criticizing its errors. The Stalin-era USSR developed under incredible pressure from the imperialist powers, a crucial fact that is often ignored in the ruling-class accounts of the "purges." In fact, these "purges" rid the communist government of collaborators and saboteurs, and helped make possible the defeat of Hitler, in sharp contrast with the "quislings" (traitors) roaming free in Western Europe, softening those countries for the Nazi conquest.

Membership In The Progressive Labor Party

Several students from the Project are seriously considering joining PLP. We argued that building a revolutionary communist party is the only thing that will permanently destroy capitalism. PL membership means agreeing in general with the Party’s analysis of the world and of revolutionary strategy, and agreeing to engage in struggle over the development of the line to better destroy capitalism; selling CHALLENGE-DESAFIO — the Party’s primary organ of communication and network-building; engaging in mass organizations while advancing PL’s ideas; donating money to help sustain the Party; and accepting and upholding democratic centralism, the means by which the party works.

We moved a number of young people closer to the Party, and removed some obstacles that hold them back from fully understanding and committing to our ideas, and to the only party with truly revolutionary goals, for a society of, by and for the working class!

Red Professors Fight for Communist Politics at Modern Languages Association Convention

PLP members of the Modern Languages Association (MLA) brought communist ideas to the group’s annual convention by fighting for and winning militant resolutions developed by the Radical Caucus, and by providing revolutionary Marxist analyses of literature and current educational policy in many of the sessions. The MLA is the world’s largest association of academics, bringing together English, Literature and Language college teachers and graduate students from around the world. One successful resolution committed the MLA to oppose the "Academic Bill of Rights" (a transparent right-wing assault on campus leftists led by the notorious David Horowitz) and to defend professors who oppose capitalism, exploitation and imperialism in their classes.

Over 10,000 professors, teachers, and graduate students attended this year’s December convention, mostly women presenting research findings and trying to get decent-paying, full-time jobs. Few attendees were black or Latin. The capitalist cutback attacks on higher education has meant fewer working-class students in college, more badly paid, part-time teaching jobs, super-exploited graduate student labor and harsher discipline against all teachers.

These real-life conditions have led most attendees to understand that liberal Democratic Party "answers" won’t change things, but they do not yet see the possibility of a radically different society, a communist society, led by the working class, in which racism, sexism, imperialist war and poverty would be abolished by ending exploitation. This was our special contribution to the conference.

PL members and friends sold CHALLENGE both inside and outside the convention, and discussed PLP’s more profound goals with colleagues. In the open debate and struggle over resolutions, PLP’ers rejected the classless slogan of "academic freedom" advanced by liberals, noting that the slogan, like "free speech," is often used by racists and anti-communists to cover up their building of fascist movements and their attacks on workers and communists. PLP believes that racism and fascism must be crushed in all forms, including suppressing the speech and writings of racists and fascists.

PLP’ers also argued that "the right to unionize" will get workers only so far since it accepts the limits of working within — and ultimately defending — capitalism. As long as the capitalists hold state power, than they can always (and do) turn around the reforms that workers may wrench from them. Instead, PLP’ers explained how the present attacks in the U.S. are endemic to capitalism, a part of the growing racist repression for which "fascism" is the only appropriate word, and that fundamental revolutionary change is needed for liberation.

While the MLA will never be a revolutionary organization, it is one vehicle of struggle against capitalist, anti-communist and racist ideas, a kind of "school for communism." The next step is to win more of our professor friends to take revolutionary ideas onto their campuses and into their classrooms to strengthen the fight against imperialism and war.

El Salvador: Youth Take Lead At School for Red Politics

EL SALVADOR — "It’s my first experience hearing what communism offers the working class," said one of the CHALLENGE readers who was meeting in a PLP-led discussion group. "The FMLN teaches you only how to paint signs and put up electoral propaganda."

"For the first time, I feel very good sharing my ideas with you about how I think work should be carried out under a communist system," said another comrade, a textile worker. "I’ve been around religious groups, the FMLN and in all of them I’ve only seen corruption and tricks for the workers."

"This is what the working class needs," said a young comrade who reviewed his experiences in an electoral party before joining PLP.

This group of comrades, mostly youth, met in the country’s most beautiful mountains to discuss three points: (1) An international report given by a Party leader; (2) Dialectical Materialism, led by a university student; and (3) writing for CHALLENGE, led by a comrade responsible for editing letters and articles for the paper.

Farm workers and city workers, teachers and university students all expressed satisfaction at being there. It was a festive day for all the youth from many cities. They listened to music, some hearing Bella Ciao and the Internationale for the first time. They asked to reproduce the CD’s in order to share them and listen to them in their clubs. Some brought guitars and sang protest songs from Latin American groups.

Those who had traveled far to get there were very enthusiastic, never tired or bored. There were serious moments — including criticism and self criticism — but also time to see a beautiful river.

In discussing the international report, one youth related the situation in the country to the Free Trade Agreement between El Salvador and the U.S. This sparked a broader discussion about the growing fight between the US, China and the European Union and how this affects El Salvador’s working class.

The comrade who led the discussion on dialectical materialism was well-prepared. Before the meeting he said, "I’m really worried because I’m still learning this material myself." A leader told him, "Prepare, but remember that the discussion is collective and you’ll be giving the introduction."

The presentation went very well, becoming more profound in relating dialectics to theory but also its application to everyone’s daily life. This shows how these young workers, farm workers and students can use dialectics to analyze reality. When one of the youngest participants was questioned about whether she understood the importance of contradictions and deciding which was the main one, she replied "For me, the main contradiction is the internal, since if I’m not convinced of the Party’s ideas, how can I convince others."

A CHALLENGE reader noted, "Here I’m seeing the importance of involving our children in political discussion. They learn more quickly and won’t be as easily contaminated by capitalism as we were."

The last point concerned the importance of writing for CHALLENGE, that it isn’t only informative, but is a tool for oganizing the Party.

At the end, everyone took responsibility for spreading communist ideas in their mass organizations, and in organizing more groups to read and distribute CHALLENGE.

LETTERS

Katrina: Face of U.S. Fascism

Recently, my partner and I spent three days in New Orleans, viewing the devastation first hand and working in the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Committee. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been uprooted in ways unimaginable. Four months after Katrina, 30,000 people are still living in temporary housing. FEMA is paying hotels $150 a night to house people, instead of seeking permanent housing solutions. On February 7, those subsidies will end and thousands will be out on the street.

While we were there, a Quality Inn hotel attempted to evict Katrina survivors. We were able to get the eviction postponed, through political and legal efforts. About 100 people, called on short notice, protested at the hotel and spoke with residents, many of whom had no place to go but the streets. The hotel wanted to kick people out; Mardi Gras season was approaching. Driving through the French Quarter, you’d never know about the devastation just a short distance away. Tourists in the Quarter partied as if the hurricane had never happened.

Meanwhile, in the lower 9th ward, where 14,000 mostly poor African-American people had lived, the whole area was uninhabitable. Block after block of rubble, stench from the accumulation of wastes, no electricity, gas, or water, and no FEMA trailers for people to use while rebuilding their homes.

One look at the levee shows why. The part of the levee alongside this neighborhood (and other poor neighborhoods) is less than two feet wide and made of non-reinforced cement. It was no match for the huge surges of water which easily broke through it. In contrast, the levee protecting the French Quarter is a steel-reinforced, half-block wide street with hotels and shopping centers atop it.

During a community meeting in the lower 9th ward, residents spoke passionately about the lack of responsiveness of all levels of government. The Army Corp of Engineers had begun bulldozing the area, making no attempt to contact owners of the houses they planned to demolish. They were stopped temporarily when about 100 people surrounded the bulldozers and threatened to make a "citizens arrest" based on a Temporary Restraining Order granted earlier.

In New Orleans, lives have been devastated by a capitalist system that cares more about profits and oil wars than people’s needs. Over 100,000 people were left in New Orleans to die, and they surely would have if the hurricane had hit directly. Still, thousands were killed by the breaking of the "sand-castle" levees by the water Katrina stirred up. Fascism is not too strong a word to describe the utter disregard the system is showing for the lives of our New Orleans brothers and sisters.

One of the most striking aspects of our visit was the hundreds of volunteers, from college students to retired people, from all over the continent. Between these volunteers and the thousands of black and white working-class New Orleanians angry at the government, there are many opportunities to organize and help out. All CHALLENGE readers should seriously consider either going to New Orleans, helping to support work in your city, or in other ways spreading the word and contributing to this important anti-racist fight.

The volunteers and New Orleans residents I met during our short stay were extremely open to PLP’s ideas about capitalism and communism. I think our Party should go to New Orleans with as many people and for as long as is feasible, given the other important work we’re doing. The face of U.S. fascism is clearest right now in New Orleans, and we need to be there to point workers and students in the direction of communist revolution as the only solution.

Midwest Reader

Capitalism Holds New Orleans by the Throat

Some may ask, "Why didn’t all of the people evacuate when told to do so?" We have been through so many hurricane threats that we didn’t know which one to take seriously. Besides that, our rulers told us that since the devastating Hurricane Betsy of 1965; our levee system was built in such a way to protect us from anything. They lied.

There were some people who could not leave New Orleans to flee to safety. I saw them taken out of their houses by helicopter a day after the storm. Some were dead.

Did we make a "choice" to stay? Yes. I did because my old 1986 Toyota would never have made it. I also based my "choice" on what our city rulers had told us over the years.

If we had mass transit out of the city, I would have left. But where were our city buses? All neatly parked in the bus yard…

The ultimate question is: Could this happen again? YES, YES, YES! If you fly over the New Orleans area you’ll see a city surrounded by water. But there’s money to be made by having a city like New Orleans. The tourist industry rakes in millions each year, especially off the backs of tens of thousands of black people who are kept poverty-stricken by this racist system. The greedy claw of capitalism holds New Orleans by the throat and won’t let go. It’ll be interesting to see if, and why, New Orleans will be rebuilt.

You’ll notice I now have a Houston address. I’m not going back to N.O. I will return when it’s safe (not now) and see if I can salvage anything out of my apartment. Stay there? No.

The greed also comes in the form of the New Orleans Energy Co. and the South Central Bell Telephone Co. They both sent me bills for services during the hurricane. I phoned them both and called them capitalist swine! They both have transferred my bill to a collection agency. I got a letter from one agency. I called and told a lady the whole truth about their bill. She seemed to understand that, at the moment, I have no means of support. But capitalism doesn’t know the word "compassion." They’re not sitting or swimming in water. Perhaps they should be!

Red Reader

P.S. — I’ve enclosed two recent pictures of the New Orleans that Mayor Ray Nagin wants us to return to. He’s come to Houston twice to ask us to return. I hit him with an egg on his bald head.

Profiteering From Hurricane Victims

The holiday season and last year’s devastating worldwide "natural disasters" have inspired the collective desire to help the working class’s suffering members to become stronger than ever. But the bosses are taking advantage of workers’ class instincts to help each other and are using volunteer service to eliminate the need for state aid. Their manipulation and exploitation is often difficult to detect. As a social service employee and PLP member, I’ve spent many hours leading many disgruntled workers in my organization to oppose such exploitative demands.

Following Hurricane Katrina, a non-profit organization — NCR — established a toll-free hotline number to place victims in new housing. NCR operates through private rental payments and funds from the Office on Housing and Urban Development to manage housing projects for low-income seniors in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Advertised on CNN, through FEMA and the Red Cross, the NCR hotline received much publicity for its "outstanding service to hurricane victims." Potential callers were informed that they would reach "trained housing specialists" to help them relocate and establish new and better lives.

But the truth about the NCR hotline is not so glamorous. To staff this housing hotline the organization mandates my fellow social service employees and me to drop our current caseloads of 50-100 low-income seniors to answer hotline calls. We weren’t trained as "housing specialists" and the company e-mail suggests we use internet resources such as Yahoo, Craigslist, and Santa-for-Seniors to meet the complicated needs of hurricane victims. In addition, the organization emphatically states that it’s "God’s mission" for the mostly part-time staff to work through evenings and weekends without pay. Super-exploitation at its finest!

I’ve struggled with many co-workers to view the Katrina disaster as a failure of the racist capitalist system, and to see that NCR’s opportunist hotline is a lose-lose situation for all workers: the social service workers are super-exploited, their current senior caseload needs are neglected and Hurricane Katrina victims are once again screwed by the system. The only winners are the NCR bosses whose profits increase as hotline publicity spreads nationwide to win them more housing contracts.

To date, the hotline has received 724 calls and has only placed 46 individuals in housing units, failure even by capitalist standards. This proves that workers don’t benefit from the opportunist activities of private enterprise. What the homeless Hurricane Katrina victims, along with all oppressed workers, do need is organized communist leadership. Without the drive for profits, workers could be given centralized training and resources to assist disaster victims efficiently and effectively. To achieve this, PLP continues to build a base among the working class at work, in the military, in school, at church and in our neighborhoods to fight for real revolutionary change.

New Jersey Comrade

Murders of Miners Have Long History

I’ve lived most of my life in the Western Pennsylvania coal fields, and some of my relatives and friends worked in the mines, so I’m very aware that this is a dangerous occupation.

The coal bosses’ murder of 12 miners in West Virginia last month (see CHALLENGE (1/19) is not just a recent development. Historically, U.S. coal bosses have murdered hundreds, if not thousands of miners over the years. In 1942, 63 miners were trapped in an explosion caused by a build-up of carbon monoxide or "black damp" at the Sonman mine near Portage, Pa., a stone’s throw from Johnstown. When rescue workers reached the miners, they were already dead. The former said many of the victims appeared to be sleeping. Some had written brief letters to their loved ones, one scrawling "I love you" on his lunch pail.

The Portage Historical Society made a video about this tragedy, titled "63 Men Down"; the actors were all local people. An investigation proved that the coal bosses were the culprits in this disaster. Initially they claimed they had checked for carbon monoxide gas, attempting to compel an employee to testify he had done so. But the latter refused and was fired.

Eventually the truth came out, provoking an outpouring of righteous anger at the mine owners. Today, there’s a statue of a miner on Portage’s Main Street to honor these workers.

But the capitalist USA is not the only country in which coal mining is a dangerous occupation. In capitalist China, 5,000 miners were killed in privately-owned mines last year. So miners in the U.S. and China have a common enemy: the capitalist system. Only a communist revolution that leads to a true workers’ state and workers’ power will ensure that coal mining, and all other jobs for that matter, will be safe. It’s clear that attempts to reform capitalism don’t cut the mustard.

Red Coal

Transit Workers in U.S. and Iran: Same Enemy, Same Fight

My co-workers and I have had many conversations about world events and workers’ struggles. Recently we discussed the NY transit strike and the fines and threats of jail for workers and their leaders; the attack on retirement benefits of public workers; the recent jailing of transit union officials in Tehran, Iran; and the subsequent strike of 9,000 bus drivers which appears to have won the release of those leaders.

Someone brought in an article detailing U.S. military and diplomatic preparations for attacking Iran in 2006, and it seems like transit workers in both countries are being attacked as part of those war preparations.

Though, I know little of Iran’s transit workers’ history, it appears that an attack on an independent organization like their union would be consistent with silencing potential opposition to the leading clergy’s regional ambitions. In the U.S., with all parts of society totally in debt, the curtailing of retirement benefits to the largest generation of retirees in history would be a way of paying for past, present and future wars.

I believe it was Mao who said that for the U.S., or any other country’s ruling class, to attack other countries it had first to attack the workers within its own borders even harder. Since what most workers want is a decent and stable life, and these ruling classes have just the opposite planned for us, this might be a good reason for workers in both countries to build solidarity and connections.

An Internationalist

Evolution: A Materialist Breakthrough

The recent column, "What Will Science Be Like Under Communism," [CHALLENGE. .01/04/06] acknowledges the importance of Darwin’s "powerful" and "confirmed" theory of evolution, including the central role of natural selection. However, the article might give the impression that PLP opposes this theory. For example, it says "[evolutionary theory] partly reflects the capitalist social relationships of Victorian England — a highly individualistic society, marked by workers competing for jobs subservient to capitalist exploiters competing for profits.…Not all relationships among members of a species or between members of different species are competitive.…In today’s capitalist society, similar false ideas are passed off as ‘objective science.’ "

Natural selection is a materialist explanation for evolutionary change among living organisms. Certain small changes in an animal (or plant) — changes that arise largely by chance — give that animal a reproductive advantage over similar animals without those changes. Reproductive means that the population of slightly-changed animals produces more offspring than the population of unchanged ones.

There can be several reasons for this advantage: the changed animals compete successfully for food with the unchanged animals; the changed animals are better able to fight off predators from another species; or the changed animals are better able to adapt to changes in the environment. Eventually the small changes become permanent in this animal population.

Natural selection is a biological process. Capitalist competition is a social process. The laws of capitalism — discovered by Marx and Engels — should not be confused with the laws of evolution. True, some writers following Herbert Spencer in the 19th century, promoted the pseudo-scientific "social Darwinist" idea that the competition and poverty of capitalism is "explained" by the laws of evolution. Darwin, however, didn’t deal with this, and the theory of evolution has nothing to do with how capitalism works.

We should be careful to distinguish the false application of evolutionary biology to social phenomena (such as capitalism, imperialism, racism or war) from the great materialist scientific breakthrough that was Darwin’s theory of evolution. This is especially important in the face of today’s right-wing religious attacks ("intelligent design") on evolutionary theory.

A Reader

CHALLENGE comments: Thanks to "A Reader" for pointing out the possible false impression about PLP’s approach towards Darwin’s theory. We agree with Karl Marx that Darwin’s contribution to natural science was one of the most important advances ever made. The above letter also explains natural selection very clearly. One additional point: all of us, Darwin included, are influenced by the society in which we live, and our ideas are, in part, shaped by the nature of our social relationships. All of us, both individually and collectively, must intensively wage the struggle to overcome capitalist ideas every day of our lives. Darwin reflected the capitalist ideas of Victorian England not in his explanation of evolution, or even of natural selection as the main mechanism of evolution, but rather in the incidental point he advanced about the "survival of the fittest," as the article "What Will Science Be Like Under Communism" explains.

Airport Workers Fight Anti-Immigrant Racism

Citizen and immigrant airport workers in SEIU passed a resolution condemning our governor's racist anti-immigrant campaign, begun a month ago to justify racist cutbacks. Utilizing false data from the Center for Immigration Education, a racist think-tank used by the fascist Minutemen, the governor wants all state and local police to ask Latino workers about their immigration status whenever they have contact with them.

This is fascism. The state government wants to criminalize a whole group of workers. Already the racist airport police have started asking Latino airport workers if they're legal residents. There is much post-9/11 anti-immigrant racism at the airport. With the Department of Homeland Security things could get worse.

Our union resolution not only calls the governor a racist, but supports recent anti-racist struggles from the Hurricane Katrina victims to the rebellions of African and Arab youth in France. Capitalist bosses need racism worldwide to make super-profits off of workers, be they African, Arab, Latino, or Asian. That's why PLP is building an international communist movement. Only communist revolution can eliminate racism. We're trying to increase the distribution of CHALLENGE among workers who support the resolution and spread the fight against anti-immigrant racism throughout the airport and into our communities. This is a racist attack on all workers.

Airport Red

REDEYE ON THE NEWS

Dems just want to polish up Fed snooping

The antiterrorism law…expanded the government’s investigative powers after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Administration and Congressional officials said they expected a compromise on the renewal bill in coming weeks between the White House and members of both parties….

Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who said he voted to block permanent renewal of the act in part because of the revelations about the spying program, said Tuesday that there was room for a deal.

"Look," Mr. Schumer said, "this is one that should be able to be worked out because the sides are relatively close." (NYT, 1/4)

Behind 'ethnic' wars is oil or mineral $$

Civil wars are much more likely in countries with oil or other mineral wealth….

The leaders of insurgent armies certainly magnify ethnic grievances as part of their grab for spoils, but sectarian hatred usually isn't sufficient to start civil wars. These wars are started by local elites that are essentially making an investment. They decide to commit violence now in the hopes of grabbing great wealth later. The people who do the killing might be whipped up by ethnic grievances, but the people who lead the civil wars are usually rational and greedy. (NYT, 12/18)

Spy bio shows US plots vs. worlds rebels

[CIA Agent] Edward Lansdale…during the cold war… was the Zelig of Washington’s global counterinsurgency effort, squelching a rebellion in the Philippines, plotting the overthrow of Fidel Castro in Cuba and blocking a potential Communist takeover of Vietnam in the first days of America’s involvement….

In 1950, Lansdale was sent to the Philippines to quell a growing Communist insurgency. There, he orchestrated what one journalist later called "a brilliantly led counterrevolution,"….

"Do what you did in the Philippines," Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told Lansdale before sending him to Vietnam in 1954. "Lansdale went to play an immense role in creating and maintaining the new regime headed by Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam…."

John Kennedy thought of Lansdale as America’s James Bond, and in the early 60’s Robert Kennedy put him in charge of Operation Mongoose, a fantastical $50 million plan to topple Castro….

Lansdale flickered on in the public consciousness after Vietnam, providing counsel to Oliver North in his effort to aid the contras in Nicaragua….

Some two decades after Lansdale’s death in 1987, the flawed assumptions that guided his thinking still thrive. Just ask the American pundits and policy makers fond of calling people like the former Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi the "George Washington of Iraq…." (NYT, 1/15)

China kills ‘wonders’ of barefoot-doctor days

China’s economic reforms have turned an almost uniformly poor nation into an increasingly prosperous one in the space of a mere generation. But the collapse of socialized medicine and staggering cost increases have opened a yawning gap between health care in the cities and the rural areas, where the former system of free clinics has disintegrated….

Until the beginning of the reform period in the early 1980’s, China’s socialized medical system, with "barefoot doctors" at its core, worked public health wonders.

From 1952 to 1982 infant mortality fell from 200 per 1,000 live births to 34, and life expectancy increased from about 35 years to 68, according to a recent study published by The New England Journal of Medicine. (NYT, 1/14)

Texas Rev. says US has slid into fascism

Listen to the Rev. Davison Loehr. A Vietnam veteran and graduate of Chicago Divinity School, Loehr is senior minister at the First Universalist Church in Austin. That’s Austin, Texas!

Loehr may be among the first ministers to use the f-word. In his new book, America, Fascism, + God: Sermons from a Heretical Preacher, he does not mince words. His Nov 7, 2004 sermon warns:

"You may wonder why anyone would use the word ‘fascism’ in a serious discussion of where America is today. …I don’t mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying." (Dolph Honicker: Pythian Press)

‘Syriana’ Is Sugar-coated Poison

Syriana is an important film about the dangers to U.S. bosses of inter-imperialist rivalry in the fight to control world oil markets. This film is preparing the U.S. population for the next Mid-East war, and eventually for war with China, by raising the levels of education about, and the commitment to, U.S. domination of the Mid-East.

The movie is quite gripping. Scenes and plot lines cut in on each other in an almost random manner, supposedly representing the chaos and unpredictability characterizing the conflicts surrounding the control of Mid-East oil. A slogan of the movie, "Everything is connected," emphasizes that what happens on the ground (i.e., war or even assassinations) results from what happens in the courts, the state and the boardrooms. It requires work to follow the film, warming us up to the fact that it requires work to understand the situation in the Mid-East.

One of the main story lines is: a CIA agent (George Clooney), with decades of experience wreaking havoc in the Arab world, gets himself onto the bad side of two major U.S. oil firms seeking to make a merger work. Events unfold too rapidly for him to distance himself from past assignments and an evil coterie of oil executives, lobbyists, Arab royals and high-powered Washington lawyers who are positively ruthless in their individual quests for power and move — quite literally — to destroy him.

Perhaps the most compelling plot line surrounds Pakistani youth who are laid off by the evil new mega-corporation and are seduced by Islamic fundamentalists with shady ties to an oil-rich royal family. The stories of these workers are told with a surprising humanity that borders (gasp) on a lack of racism. That is saved for the Matt Damon character’s relationship with an "enlightened" royal (more below).

Additionally, the film has none of the overt cheerleading for the Democratic Party characterizing, for instance, Michael Moore’s work. The film paints the U.S. Establishment quite harshly. The movie’s strengths exist in order to inject its poisons into the viewer more effectively.

Poison #1: An oldy but goody — the myth of the "honorable cop." The viewer is left with a hope that a horribly corrupt system can be saved if only the "right people" are in charge. This time we wind up rooting for Clooney, the CIA terrorist who is betrayed by his bosses, and the Arab Prince who wants to bring Democratic reform but is in bed with the Chinese bosses.

Poison #2: Arabs are ruled by incompetent, wasteful and stupid royal families and deserve to be ruled by Westernized comprador [local pro-imperialist boss] elements that will bring "democracy," "market efficiency" and "stability" to the region while maintaining enough Muslim veneer and social spending to keep Bin Laden’s recruitment in check. In the vein of classic racist colonialist claptrap, dating back to Rudyard Kipling, it takes a brilliant white economic adviser (Matt Damon) to lead a Western-educated emir’s son by the hand along the road to liberal capitalist nirvana.

Poison #3: Perhaps the most difficult to capture, the film makes economics, not politics, the driving force behind the miserable world situation. Impossibly powerful economic forces drive even decent men to commit foul acts (Syriana’s Bennett Holliday) and leave the viewer feeling powerless. Resistance comes in flashes of anger and acts of terror but ring hollow with futility.

For all of its weaknesses, Syriana is an important film to discuss with workers and students. It can be a launching pad for PL’s politics; we need to emphasize the idea that the only way to destroy the society represented in the movie is by workers organizing together worldwide to destroy ALL the bosses internationally and create a world controlled by workers: communism.

(Next issue, a review of Jarrhead).

UNDER COMMUNISM: Collectivity Among Soviet Women and Men Combat Pilots in World War II (Part 3)

(Part 2 described the struggle for recognition of equality by women combat pilots. This final part describes solidarity between the women and men. Quotes from Anne Noggle’s "A Dance With Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II.")

"My navigator, Larisa Radchikova, and I completed the first mission, but on the second one we were caught by enemy searchlights after we had dropped our bombs. The anti-aircraft guns fired at us fiercely from all directions, and suddenly I felt our aircraft hit. My left foot slipped down into an empty space below me; the bottom of the cockpit had been shot away. I felt something hot streaming down my left arm and leg — I was wounded.

"An airwave lifted us, and I managed to glide back over the river to the neutral zone. The Germans could see us in that zone and went on firing at us. We got out of the cockpit with difficulty, because both of us were wounded. Large splinters were sticking out of my body. My navigator was wounded in the neck. We walked very slowly toward the hills where our troops were supposedly located.

"Larisa was wearing army high boots, and they were squeaking and making so much noise that I made her take them off so we would not be detected by the enemy. All the way from the landing place to the Soviet lines she walked through mud and impassable roads with nothing on her feet but socks. I was trying to take care of her and she was trying to take care of me!

"A sentry came out of the darkness and questioned us in a thick Kazakh accent. Larisa replied in shock ‘Are you Russian or German?’ And they were Russian! We were taken to their dugout. I had a piece of shrapnel sticking out of my arm, and one of the soldiers tried to pull [it] out with pliers, but he couldn’t.

"It was a number of hours before we arrived at a field hospital where severely wounded soldiers were waiting their turn to be operated on. I had lost much blood and was very weak. We sat on a bench awaiting our turn for surgery. As long as I live I’ll never forget mortally wounded soldiers whispering to us to jump the line and go ahead of them for surgery, because their own minutes of life were numbered."

Another woman recounted, "[During a mission] I saw our commander wounded in his chest and right arm. I couldn’t hold the control stick — it was beyond my physical capacity. I dashed to the flight engineer for help, but he was on the floor, bleeding from six bullet wounds. We touched the ground — our commander was barely conscious but still managed to control the plane. I can hardly account of how I energized myself to drag our commander out through the hatch, but I did.

"He wanted us to leave him because he was so badly wounded, and he had his pistol ready to shoot himself if the fascists came. I didn’t obey him and stayed with the wounded.

"Months later, this commander transferred me to Kiev toward the end of the war because our regiment was attacked again and again, and on each flight we returned with bullet holes in the fuselage. He made this decision because he felt that he bore responsibility for my life; he was saving me from a wild bullet. I sobbed for several days, not only because I was losing my crew but because I would never cross the front again."

This short series on Soviet women pilots during World War II has shown how the world’s first society to be controlled by the working class, led by its communist party, inspired women and men to fight for women’s equality. Old sexist habits inherited from capitalism die hard, and require constant struggle, by both men and women. We have seen how this hard-won equality of opportunity for women unified and benefited both women and men. We have seen how the fight to build a communist society can inspire selfless heroism from both.

Finally, we’ve seen how all this occurred despite the weaknesses in this first historic attempt to destroy capitalism — weaknesses such as maintaining the wage system and elitist inequalities, that eventually led the Soviet Union back to capitalism, rather than on to communism.

Today’s international working class has the benefit of their gigantic achievements and, through PLP’s contributions, an understanding of the weaknesses. PLP will fight to guarantee that communism will ultimately seize a permanent hold throughout the world.

In Memoriam: Mary Finney

Mary Finney, a long-time member of Progressive Labor Party in New Jersey, died on January 6. She succumbed to a series of debilitating illnesses, against which she had fought a hard battle for many years.

Mary first joined the Party in 1971. We met at a time when she was fighting the welfare department to get child care for her kids. She had been told she was "$5 over the eligibility limit." Mary had recently lost her first husband; he died in an accident while driving a truck. Party members joined Mary in confronting welfare officials about this unjust denial. Suddenly, Mary and her family were "eligible" after all.

Our student comrades looked up to Mary as a strong woman comrade and a real fighter. Once becoming active with the Party, she wanted to know everything about what made us tick. She learned quickly, growing from her experience as a black woman fighting racism and oppression, both of which she hated with a passion her entire life. She always had friends from many different backgrounds, men and women, young and older.

Some of her main qualities testify to why she became involved, then active. Mary had a wonderful heart. She wanted the best for other people, and she always put herself second to the needs of others. Once, when a Party member visited her in her small apartment, Mary had taken in three people newly arrived from Haiti. Without resources, they had knocked on her door. Mary let them spend the night.

Mary was always a hard worker, holding many different jobs in her life, from factories like Arts Metal in Newark to her work as a home health aide in Bergen County. She worked until she was too sick to continue.

As was said at her funeral, Mary wanted a better world for every worker on earth. She knew it would take a decisive revolutionary struggle by millions of people to achieve it. She tried to stay in that struggle herself, before the pressures of life took her away from it.

Like many working-class families in Newark, Mary was forced to shuttle her seven children and belongings to a series of apartments. She was always fighting for Section 8 housing, which she acquired only after becoming disabled.

Despite all the stresses confronting her, Mary never, ever lost sight of the goal of communism. Towards the end of her life, she rededicated herself to that struggle. One of her last political acts was to attend a May Day celebration in New York City. Finally, Mary was victimized by the oppressive system she fought so hard to change.

No one should have had to go through the hard times and suffering that Mary experienced, especially toward the end of her life. And when we achieve the world for which Mary and so many others like her have fought, no one will.

(Ed. Note: Much of the above eulogy was delivered at Mary’s funeral service, attended by 250 people at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Newark, NJ.)

1. Workers Refuse to Sacrifice for Imperialist War:
   TRANSIT STRIKE SHOWS NEED TO BREAK BOSSES' LAWS
   1. MASS SUPPORT FOR THE STRIKERS
2. Bosses' State Power Cuts Wages, Pensions, Health Benefits
   1. KNOW THY ENEMY!
3. BANKS ARE THE BIG WINNERS; TRANSIT WORKERS GET WAGE-CUT
   1. A WAGE-CUT CONTRACT
   2. THE HIDDEN HEALTH CARE TIME BOMB
   3. MEANWHILE, $17 BILLION IN WALL STREET BONUSES
4. NY Union Hacks on Bosses' Side in Transit Strike
   1. UNION MIS-LEADERS: LIEUTENANTS OF THE BOSSES
5. `The Bosses are the Real Criminals . . .
6. COAL BOSSES MURDER 12 MINERS
7. U.S., China Imperialists Headed For Showdown
8. VW Wildcatters March Against Union Hacks
9. UAW Sellouts Jam Thru Suspect Vote Over Ford Give-backs
10. No Matter Who `Administers' the Market, It's Still Capitalism
11. Frame-up of Anti-Racist Fighters Defeated
12. Anti-Racist Legal Strategy
13. D.C. Winter Project Combines Marxist Study with Pro-Worker Action
14. Challenging the Pro-War Dictatorship in Public Health
15. Under Communism
    Soviet Women Fighter Pilots' Struggle for Equality
16. Banks, Loans Sharks Make War on GI's
17. `Monk' Builds Sympathy for Cops
18. LETTERS
    1. Class Consciousness Emerges on Picket Line
    2. Barcelona Bus Drivers Greet NYC Strikers
    3. Strikers Cheer Student, Teacher Support
    4. Transit Fight Helps Teachers
    5. Bosses' Media Unite to Attack Strikers
    6. U.S. Bosses Aim to Slaughter Pensions
    7. CHALLENGE comments:
    8. Hospital Workers Back Strikers
    9. Youth Stand on Workers' Side
    10. Morales' Socialism Protects Bosses
    11. Using CHALLENGE to Fight Factory Fascism
19. RED EYE ON THE NEWS
    1. `We do torture' US school could boast
    2. Big biz robs us no matter who is elected
    3. US, Britain plan hidden control of Iraq oil
    4. Shantytowns erupt, losing faith in SA gov't
    5. Workers founded science, not just great men

Workers Refuse to Sacrifice for Imperialist War:
TRANSIT STRIKE SHOWS NEED TO BREAK BOSSES' LAWS

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 2 -- For three days, 33,000 black, Latin and white, men and women transit workers, members of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union (TWU), shut down the largest mass transit system in the U.S. These workers move 7,000,000 riders 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is a dangerous job with one of the highest injury rates in the U.S., prompting many other other workers to appreciate the transit workers' efforts and to agree they deserve a decent contract and retirement rights at 55.

The strike showed that workers are not willing to pay for the hundreds of billions the bosses need for their endless imperialist wars. The ruling class must allocate as much money as possible to its war machine, with little left over to pay for workers' wages, pensions or health care. Locked in fierce global competition with their imperialist rivals, the bosses must drive down the wages and working conditions of workers here. Even if the workers didn't view this as a strike against the war economy, the bosses certainly do. The mainly black and Latin workers waged an illegal strike over issues affecting the entire working class -- health care, pensions and wages. They defied the Taylor Law which bans strikes of public employees, fining them two days pay for every day on strike and fining the union $1 million a day.

The rank-and-file's leadership and anger forced the walkout and demonstrated the power of the working class, setting an example for workers everywhere facing the same attacks. When scores of PLP members joined the picket lines, the strikers gave CHALLENGE and PLP leaflets a warm reception.

MASS SUPPORT FOR THE STRIKERS

The racist rulers cannot stand workers challenging their state apparatus. What if auto and airline workers were to follow that example? Despite an all-out racist attack from the ruling class and its media, the strikers enjoyed mass support. One poll showed 52% of the general public and 75% of black people backed the strikers. This reflects how the war in Iraq, the mass racist terror following Hurricane Katrina and endless economic hardships are beginning to impact the outlook of the masses. This bodes well for future attempts to organize mass support for workers' actions.

Despite a $1 billion surplus, the corrupt MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) bosses -- recently caught keeping two sets of books -- demanded a discriminatory two-tier pension system for new workers and an increase in the retirement age from 55 to 62 plus a 6% contribution towards the health plan for new workers. While the Mayor, the Governor and the media smeared the workers as "law-breakers," the MTA was breaking the Taylor Law, which makes it illegal to negotiate retirement benefits.

The bosses pulled out all stops of their state power and their media to beat down the transit strikers. In a lynch-mob atmosphere, racist billionaire Mayor Bloomberg called the mostly black and Latino workers "selfish, greedy thugs." A NY Post columnist labeled them a "homegrown enemy," comparing them to the terrorists responsible for 9/11. Even black radio morning show DJ Miss Jones slandered the mostly black strikers. Every news outlet lied about how the strikers were "harming the poorest workers," something they never said when the MTA hiked the fare to $2. With the strikers defying the Taylor Law, racist billionaire Bloomberg tried to get the court to impose a penalty of $25,000 PER WORKER for the first day of the strike and DOUBLING it every day thereafter -- more than a year's wages in two days!

This short transit strike, led by black and Latin workers against the bosses' law, defying racist hysteria that equated them with 9/11 terrorists and "holding the city for ransom," was a breath of fresh air for the entire working class. It highlighted the power of organized workers and how the city runs on workers' labor. It showed how the bosses run the state and will use their class dictatorship launch racist attacks to finance their imperialist wars. Only the fight for communism -- where workers will rule -- will smash the bosses' dictatorship.

In the wake of this strike, PLP will work hard to consolidate new readers and distributors of CHALLENGE and strengthen our ties with transit workers, on all of our jobs, in our schools and communities and in the barracks. This is how that flash of anti-racist defiance can build the revolutionary movement. Although it did not "win" appreciable gains, the transit strike was a significant political battle. It could be the rumbling before a volcano or the thunder before a storm.

Bosses' State Power Cuts Wages, Pensions, Health Benefits

The year 2005 saw a mini-strike wave. It ended with the transit workers strike in NYC and with Northwest Airline strikers rejecting the bosses' latest offer and its pilots threatening to strike. Attacks on pensions and retiree medical care for future workers have sparked a walkout at Lockheed and two at Boeing -- to name a few. The New York Times worries about the "clash of race, culture and class." The potential for anti-racist, class-conscious politics has grown in a few short months. Let the New York Times and the bosses they serve have nightmares!

The bosses' labor lieutenants have worked mightily to short-circuit rank-and-file militancy. In order to hit the bricks, Lockheed workers had to override a proposed contract the IAM union misleaders had cooked up to eliminate retiree medical benefits for new hires -- setting the stage for walkouts at Boeing. The biggest Boeing strike was cut short when the liberal Gephardt, ex-Senator from Missouri, brokered a secret deal. Most recently, the TWU strikers were undercut by nearly the whole NYC labor leadership in another backroom deal.

KNOW THY ENEMY!

We need to build working-class strength. Make no mistake about it; such strength cannot be built through secret backroom deals. Such deals won't help our class understand how the bosses exercise their dictatorship over us. They only spread illusions about the nature of capitalism, illusions that disarms us.

No matter what the result of the TWU contract, the ruling class intends to use the "unforgiving discipline of the financial markets" to force future pension and retiree health cuts. A New York Times article a scant two weeks before the transit strike ("The Next Retirement Time Bomb," 12/11/05), said, "Thousands of government bodies including states, cities, towns, school districts and water authorities [will be subject to] a new accounting rule to be phased in over three years." These governmental bodies will be forced to account for "future [retiree] obligations" instead of the present "pay-as-you-go" accounting rules. Their credit ratings will plummet, making it enormously expensive to borrow money, if not actually forced into bankruptcy -- "propelling radical cutbacks for government retirees."

The "invisible hand of the market" will assure these attacks are viciously racist. "The pressure is greatest in places like Detroit, Flint and Lansing," doubly victimizing a disproportionately black work-force already attacked by the cut-backs in auto and other manufacturing industries.

Democracy is exposed as a sham when faced with capitalist markets. The same group of labor hacks who sold out the NYC transit strikers complain about "right-wing think tanks and conservative Republicans [who] want to do away with traditional pension plans and replace them with much-cheaper 401(K)s." (New York Times, 12/24/05) But the fact remains, no politician, Democrat or Republican, can stand up to the "unforgiving discipline of the financial markets" -- the hidden hand of the bosses' dictatorship.

Turn Strikes into Schools for Communism

The only viable answer to the bosses' dictatorship is the dictatorship of the working class. Working-class power can't be voted in, nor can even the most militant of strikes assure it. That kind of power requires a revolution.

Indeed, even socialism, which preserves the market and production for sale, can't serve our interests. Nothing less than communism -- where we produce for use not for sale -- can end these attacks.

The bosses must prepare for "stunningly expensive" wars to maintain their hold on Mid-East oil, according to Peter Peterson, the head of the Council of Foreign Relations. "It's national security or retirement security," he warns. We welcome and support anti-racist, pro-working class strikes, but ultimately the bosses will use their dictatorship to force cuts to finance their imperialist dreams. We must shed all illusions of peace with capitalism and prepare for communist revolution. Lasting gains can be measured in CHALLENGES sold and new networks of sellers, laying the basis for growth of the Party and the revolutionary movement.

BANKS ARE THE BIG WINNERS; TRANSIT WORKERS GET WAGE-CUT

"I think we got shafted," said veteran bus driver William Vargas. "I don't think we should pay for health benefits. We never did and we shouldn't start now." (NY Daily News, 12/28) He's right. The corrupt MTA claimed it couldn't afford to pay workers a decent contract despite a $1 billion surplus, because of a projected "deficit" three years from now.

But that "deficit" is caused by rapidly rising interest payments to Wall Street's big banks. In the 1990's, Governor Pataki cut the state's contribution to the MTA's capital improvement budget in order to pay for his tax cuts. This forced the MTA to borrow millions and raise fares. The interest payments on the debts to the banks will double between 2002 and 2007, and the MTA will pay twice as much in debt service costs to the banks as it pays to the workers' pension fund, shooting up 36% by 2009.

In their last contract, the MTA cried "broke" and forced workers to take a wage freeze in the first year. Now, it claims it needs a $1 billion surplus for "future deficits." At this rate workers could never demand increases. And it's the State's under-funding of the transit system that's responsible for the "deficit," a scam that fills the vaults of the big bankers.

A WAGE-CUT CONTRACT

Meanwhile, transit workers may be stuck with a wage-cut! The tentative agreement provides a total wage increase of 10.5% over 37 months. However, workers will pay AT LEAST 1.5% per year in health premiums (see below). Deducting that 1.5% in health premiums leaves a net increase of 9% over three years. If inflation rises at 3% per year, or 9% over three years, the workers' wage "increase" will have been wiped out. But....

THE HIDDEN HEALTH CARE TIME BOMB

The kicker is health care premiums are not limited to 1.5%. The "Memorandum of Agreement" states that "the 1.5% contribution shall be increased [our emphasis -- Ed.] by the extent to which the rate of increase in the cost of health benefits exceed general wage increases." Based on the MTA's projected rise in health care costs over the next three years, the workers' health premium would soon go up to 2% per year and would continue rising thereafter as health care costs rise. Combined with projected inflation, the workers will end up with a net wage cut.

Taylor Law fines of 6 days pay for 3 days on strike average $1,000 per worker, or a .7% percent over three years. The lump-sum refund of pension contributions-- for maybe half the workforce (talk about two-tier systems) -- that were wrongly deducted from workers' paychecks from 1994 to 2000 is no sure thing either. It has to be approved by the State Legislature and if that happens Pataki has already promised to veto it (as he has done twice before).

Yet this was the workers' money in the first place -- the bosses stole it to pay it into the pension funds prior to 2001. If workers had not struck, the MTA would never have given it back as part of the new contract. And rarely publicized is the fact that the pension system already is a multi-tier system, with continually added tiers by the State Legislature.

Finally, the workers lose in two ways because of the 37th month contract extension: First, it means this agreement expires on January 15, 2009. meaning the workers lose the leverage of a potential mid-December strike, during the billion-dollar holiday season; and second, the MTA "estimates that the contract extension is worth...more than $11 million [to the MTA] because it "defers raises by one month in the second and third years." (NY Times, 12/31/05) [Our emphasis -- Ed.)

While the contract includes maternity pay, an extra holiday and increased health coverage for retired workers, it made no progress on one of the union's main demands, a reduction in the 16,000 disciplinary attacks on the workers.

MEANWHILE, $17 BILLION IN WALL STREET BONUSES

Billionaire Mayor Bloomberg labeled striking transit workers "greedy" and "selfish," but didn't mention his buddies on Wall Street. According to Johnson Associates, a compensation consulting firm, the top layer of traders, brokers and investment bankers will rake in $17 BILLION in incentive payouts and year-end bonuses. According to New York magazine, Goldman Sachs alone has put aside $11 billion for bonuses! Top guys can expect incentive awards of up to $40 million each.

NY Union Hacks on Bosses' Side in Transit Strike

"What they did not do was declare support for the strike." (NY Times, 12/23) That's how the bosses' leading mouthpiece characterized the city's union leaders who abandoned the strikers and helped sell them out. They feared that their own members might get similar militant ideas if the strike continued.

According to the Times, 40 city union "leaders," who "represent" over two million members, "warned [Local 100 President] Toussaint that the fines, public anger and contempt citations could be disastrous," and that "his union was in real peril" if he didn't end the strike soon. So Toussaint asked the presidents of UNITE-HERE (apparel/hotel/restaurant union) and SEIU Local 32-B (building service workers), who both backed the mayor's re-election, to let Bloomberg know that if the MTA dropped the (illegal) pension demand, the union would accept health care payments for the workers. This enabled the bosses to take their illegal demand off the table in exchange for the TWU accepting a 1.5% payment per year for health benefits. It created the illusion of "give and take from both sides" and led to the tentative agreement. The workers give, and the bosses take, capitalism's foundation stone.

The TWU International didn't back the strike, denouncing it as "illegal" and urging workers to cross their own picket lines. Trying to save their own asses from any fines or jail time, they sent their lawyers to court to support the bosses' position that Local 100 was breaking the law!

UNION MIS-LEADERS: LIEUTENANTS OF THE BOSSES

The union misleaders are caught between Iraq and a hard place. Their loyalty to the Wall Street bankers and the profit system mean they must figure out a way to help the bosses drive down the standard of living of all workers so they can maintain a permanent war economy and compete internationally.

The strike exposed the bankruptcy of relying on Democratic or Republican politicians. Politicians from both parties condemned the strike as "illegal," despite receiving millions in contributions from the TWU and other city unions.

In 1937, when the bosses threatened to use the Army and National Guard to retake the GM plants seized by workers in a sit-down strike, the then communist-led UAW organized 40,000 workers from four states to rush to Flint, Michigan, and surround the struck factories. That kind of support is far from the minds of NYC's labor fakers who feared organizing their two million members into any mass demonstrations or sympathy strikes and expose the bankers who reap billions off the workers and riding public (see page 2).

Today GM and Ford squeeze auto workers for nearly $2 billion in health care premiums, Delphi demands a 67% wage-cut and the airline bosses cut wages and eliminate pensions, all without strikes, except the Northwest Airlines mechanics who got no support and were all replaced.

But even greater militancy isn't the answer, though it's necessary. The key is building a movement to overthrow the bosses with communist revolution. Despite the best efforts of those who came before us, today we are facing permanent war and the bosses are taking back 70 years of hard-won gains. As long as the bosses hold power, no worker is secure, and no strike will lead to workers' power. But every strike and every action can build the revolutionary movement if communists are active in the struggle, building unbreakable ties to the workers and offering them a revolutionary alternative. Based on the warm reception given to PLP on the picket lines, there are more opportunities to win transit workers away from the bosses' lieutenants who run the unions and to communist revolution and a system that operates for workers' needs.

`The Bosses are the Real Criminals . . .

(The following are strikers' comments a PL'er heard at the Mike Quill Bus Depot, 41st St. and 11th Ave., Manhattan, on the first two days of the transit strike.)

"I fought in Nam and the Gulf War. This is how they repay us, by attacking workers and cutting VA benefits. These wars are all about making money for the rich."
"The Taylor Law is a weapon of management against the workers. We need to break it."
"If we're not allowed to strike, what good is a union?"
"They send these guys to die in Iraq and leave behind families with no way to support themselves."
"They sent us to ferry people to and from the WTC on 9/11 without giving us any protective gear or warning about toxic dust. Now some of us are sick and they deny we were poisoned."
"The workers helped people get out on 9/11 but the politicians take all the credit."
"The bosses lie to the public about how much we earn."
"Why are the police here? They pay them overtime while we get fined."
"The bosses are the real criminals. Look what they did to the Enron, Northwest and GM workers. They cut our wages and steal our benefits, and then they call us `thugs' for fighting back. Workers are never safe."
"We face disciplinary actions for calling in to use the bathroom on the job."
"The bosses' media spreads a bunch of lies to turn other workers against us."

[Upon hearing from a union lieutenant that Toussaint was going to meet with a mediator and send the workers back before settling a contract, one worker shouted out]: "This is a fascist society! The bosses are no different from Hitler. They want to bust the unions. I'm not going back until we have a contract." [The crowd of workers around him cheered.]

COAL BOSSES MURDER 12 MINERS

SAGO, WEST VIRGINIA, Jan. 4 -- Eleven miners were murdered in an explosion in a mine filled with deadly carbon dioxide, owned by the ICG conglomerate, a mine cited for 202 violations in 2005. Sixteen citations were for "unwarrantable failure orders," problems that a mine owner "knows exists but fails to correct. Thirteen of these orders were issued in the past six months." (NY Times, 1/4/06) The company was fined $24,000 for these 202 citations, an average of $118 per violation.

Since June the mine has had 15 roof-falls or wall collapses, "an unusually high number...indicative of roof-control problems." The mine also had "dangerous accumulations of coal dust....which is highly combustible."

The dead miners' families experienced an excruciating turn of events when at one point the bosses and the deputy secretary of the state's Dept. of Military Affairs and Public Safety said the miners were alive, "being examined at the mine...and would soon be taken to nearby hospitals." (NYT) This was exposed as a blatant lie when three hours later the overjoyed families were told that the eleven were dead.

Such is the life of a worker under capitalism where profits are supreme and bosses such as these mine owners look on paltry fines as merely a "fee" for doing business, while these coal barons' government hardly gives them a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile, the miners' families must suffer the rest of their lives without fathers, husbands or brothers.

A system that destroys the lives of workers in this fashion must be smashed.

U.S., China Imperialists Headed For Showdown

The U.S., currently the world's biggest imperialist power, and China, the fastest growing economy, are on a collision course over Middle Eastern oil. We can't predict just when or how the crunch will come, but both sides are warning of -- and planning for -- dire events.

Flynt Leverett and Jeffrey Bader, Brookings Institution scholars, recently published an article entitled "Managing China-U.S. Energy Competition in the Middle East" (Washington Quarterly, Winter 2005-2006). They note China's skyrocketing energy needs: "By 2004, with the economy still growing at 9.5 percent annually...Chinese oil demand had risen to six million barrels per day....China's oil demand will rise to about 10 million barrels per day by 2030, of which 80 percent will be imported." Those imports can come only from the Persian Gulf region, which holds two-thirds of proven global oil reserves. No other part of the world, including Russia and the Caspian region, claims more than one-tenth.

But U.S. rulers' oil thirst is growing, too. And it's not just because U.S. imports will pass 20 million barrels a day in 2025. U.S. imperialism functions largely through the energy weapon. The domination of Mid-East crude by U.S. companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco, and British allies Shell and BP, gives U.S. bosses tremendous economic and political leverage over dependent foreign customers. Russian Gazprom's strong-arming of Eastern Europe pales beside the worldwide extortion racket the Exxon gang has run ever since World War II.

Chinese and U.S. oil requirement projections are fairly old news. What's new is the increasingly hostile rhetoric. Imperialist pundits and politicians now admit freely that the economic conflict could erupt into war. The Brookings paper says China will intensify its financial, diplomatic and naval efforts in the Middle East in order "to maximize its access to hydrocarbon resources under any foreseeable circumstances, including possible military conflict with the United States." It cites Vietnam War criminal Henry Kissinger as arguing, with direct reference to China, "that competition over hydrocarbon resources will be the most likely cause for international conflict in coming years."

In November, Senator Joe Lieberman, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), another top imperialist think-tank like Brookings, foresaw "Sino-American confrontations over oil that could in the years ahead threaten our national security and global security." Lieberman, who led Senate support for both U.S. wars for Iraq's oil, warned, "China is entering military-basing agreements with countries along its oil supply routes from the Middle East and is building a very substantial blue-water navy." Lieberman bluntly suggested the ultimate scope of the conflict: "Wars have been fought over such competitions for natural resources....exactly such a competition is one of the factors that led to Pearl Harbor and World War II."

What will happen, and when, has become a topic of great debate among think-tankers. Ted Galen Carpenter, a CFR member who preaches imperialism at the formerly isolationist Cato Institute, has written a book called "America's Coming War with China." It pinpoints the sinking of a U.S. aircraft carrier off Taiwan in 2013 as the outbreak of combat. Beijing recently reaffirmed its threat to seize Taiwan -- which commands Mid-East oil routes to much of China, as well as to Korea and Japan -- if Taipei declares independence. Adam Segal, a CFR fellow, acknowledged (CFR interview, 02/16/05) the conventional wisdom that "China was two decades behind the United States" militarily. But Segal cautioned, "China doesn't have to be a peer competitor with the United States to be a threat, especially if you look at the weapons it's been purchasing from the Russians: the Su-27 and Su-30 combat aircraft, the Sovremenny-class destroyer, the Kilo-class attack submarine. All of these seem to be targeted to U.S. Navy carrier groups."

In a real sense, the shooting has already started. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 nullified big oil-production contracts China had made with Saddam Hussein in 1997. But U.S. rulers are not yet ready to face China, or even a Chinese ally like Iran, head-on (although, if forced, they will, ruthlessly). They suffer from serious weaknesses. One is their inability to wage war by proxy, as they did in NIcaragua, El Salvador and Colombia. Another is their inability to field an army large enough to secure Iraq. Most significant is their related failure to militarize U.S. society, especially in the wake of Sept. 11. When 33,000 New York City transit workers struck recently in defiance of the bosses' law, they showed a healthy reluctance to submit to an agenda of "sacrifice" for U.S. imperialism.

U.S. rulers seem to be pursuing a tactic of side-stepping the China problem until they have emerged victorious from Iraq's quicksands and fully mobilized the nation for war. Since each prospect appears increasingly doubtful in the near term, U.S. imperialists are seeking to buy time. Brookings and Lieberman urge China to buy oil on the international market (meaning from Exxon), instead of making private deals with "rogue states" like Iran. Such purchases, while enhancing China's economic and military might, would at least for a while, slow China's influence with U.S. enemies. Kissinger, hoping to use the U.S. nuclear arsenal to deter China's expansion, calls for "a global conference among the nuclear powers." Carpenter says the U.S. should sell Taiwan more arms but avoid binding promises to defend the island against a Chinese invasion.

We don't pretend to have the proverbial crystal ball. We can't provide a date or location for the outbreak of U.S.-China hostilities. But recent history shows that capitalists' need for profits drives them to fight viciously over resources such as oil. Chasing oil wealth, U.S. rulers have wasted the lives of over a million Iraqis and thousands of GIs in the past two decades alone. War between the U.S. and China would make that carnage look trifling. The only way to stop the escalating slaughter is to eliminate the profit system itself and replace it with a government of the working class. This is our Party's ultimate goal.

VW Wildcatters March Against Union Hacks

BARCELONA, SPAIN, Dec. 30 -- On Dec. 23, the day before the Xmas "recess" was to begin, 660 workers at the SEAT Martorell auto plant here (owned by VW) got a holiday "gift" from the bosses: mass layoffs. The bosses went worker to worker, telling them to pack their belongings and leave. They even had buses waiting for the fired workers, who were some of the most militant rank-and-filers and older workers who the company wanted to replace with lower-paid workers.

Workers immediately organized wildcats against this attack, first paralyzing the morning shift for three hours, later almost shutting down the next two shifts. Marches were organized to the bosses' main offices and to the two unions in the plant (CCOO and UGT) which endorsed the deal. SEAT security guards were sent to protect these hacks from the angry workers.

A third smaller and more militant union, the CGT, was heavily hit by the firings, including the woman leader of the local CGT, Merchez Sanchez. Twenty percent of all those fired were women although they comprise only 12% of the labor force. Some were pregnant.

While workers were fighting back, union hack Joan Costubiela, general secretary of the CCOO in Catalonia, with help from the local government, justified the deal, saying: "Unfortunately we had no choice but to negotiate the firings." They think that this way VW will at least continue some production in Spain, instead of moving to lower-wage regions in Eastern Europe.

SEAT, Spain's biggest auto company, was originally built by fascist dictator Franco with help from Italy's Fiat). In the last decade VW, Europe's largest automaker swallowed SEAT. Ironically, the SEAT firings occurred just as VW was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the mass production of the VW Beetle -- Hitler's dream car -- although it was not sold commercially until after World War II. In December 1945, British occupying forces took it over to restart production and later turned it over to its original German bosses.

Today, the world's big automakers are fighting their own "car war." To be competitive, Ford and GM are eliminating 60,000 jobs worldwide. VW is attempting the same. It's estimated VW has 15,000 excess jobs in Western Europe. Spain used to be a cheaper labor zone, attractive to automakers because of its proximity to the big auto markets in France and Germany. But Eastern Europe and China are taking Spain's place.

Spain's "socialist" government is doing its best to ensure that labor costs are competitive with cheap wage areas like China and Poland. New "labor reforms" aim to end the collective agreements and open-ended contracts -- won when the Franco dictatorship collapsed in the 1970's -- and which guarantee cost-of-living increases while protecting other conditions and rights for 70% of Spain's workers. Recently coal miners and SEAT workers, among others, have struck against the labor "reforms."

With this deal, Volkswagen says it will continue its $750 million investment as part of a restructuring plan entitled "New SEAT." This involves the production of a new model of its Ibiza car and another new model at Martorell in 2008. But in the 1990s, VW also invested heavily in SEAT and built one of Europe's most modern and productive plants. So many think the attacks against the workers will continue.

The Martorell SEAT Plant was scheduled to reopen on Jan. 2. The union hacks, the company and the local government are trying their best to sabotage any workers' struggles. Again, we see that autoworkers worldwide have a lot in common: they're suffering mass attacks aided by union hacks, be they UAW in the U.S., CCOO/UGT in Spain, or IGMetall in Germany.

Autoworkers need a common international strategy to fight back. They need an international revolutionary leadership to carry on the fight against these warmakers, and to link their struggles from Barcelona to Detroit. Autoworkers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your union hacks and mass layoffs!

UAW Sellouts Jam Thru Suspect Vote Over Ford Give-backs

DETROIT, MI. Dec. 22 -- "I underestimated my brothers and sisters," one Ford worker said as his local and many other workers rejected the UAW leadership's health care concession contract. The UAW leadership claims it passed by 51%-49%, but didn't release a local-by-local vote count and refused to say how many workers voted. "Democracy" in action!

About 87,000 active Ford workers were eligible to vote. As with GM, where the union claims the contract won by 60-40, retirees were barred from voting. Large locals in Chicago, Louisville, Kansas City and St. Louis, MO, and St. Paul, MN rejected the contract. A leaflet distributed at Local 600, the UAW's biggest Ford local, said the contract passed by 68 votes, 2,645-2577, after union officials passed around plastic jugs to collect "Yes/No" slips. Had retires voted, both contracts definitely would have been rejected.

The UAW agreed to $850 million in annual health care cuts for retirees just as Ford was announcing the closing of six plants and eliminating 30,000 jobs. Active workers will pay a minimum of $2,000 annually to a health care fund while retired workers will pay up to $752 a year for family coverage.

At GM, the union agreed to $15 billion in current and future health care cuts and ten days later GM announced 12 plant closings and the slashing of 30,000 jobs. These cuts, and more to come at Chrysler, Delphi and Visteon, will ripple throughout the industry and the economy.

These attacks, midway through a contract that expires in September 2007, are a down payment by the nationalist union leaders to help the bosses meet their fierce international competition, especially their loss of the U.S. market share to the Japanese bosses. The UAW hacks' loyalty to the bosses has brought the labor movement to the brink of extinction as more than 70 years of hard-won gains are unraveling.

This inter-imperialist competition among billionaires has led to the savage war in Iraq, which has already cost more than 100,000 lives and more than $6 billion-a-month. The bosses need fascism in the workplace to feed their war economy. The only future we have supporting "our" bosses is more poverty, racist terror, Homeland Security fascism and imperialist wars.

We need to build an international communist movement to overthrow the bosses and their racist profit system.

The sentiment of Ford workers, like that in the NYC transit strike, could reflect a change in the workers' mood refusing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of the bosses' war machine. It certainly signals increased opportunities for PLP's growth among industrial workers. This process will in part be measured CHALLENGE by CHALLENGE and with a growing network of distributors.

No Matter Who `Administers' the Market, It's Still Capitalism

On November 19, I participated in the "Students and Educators to Stop the War Conference." In my workshop, a participant mentioned political torture in El Salvador and said workers administering the means of production would create an alternative system to capitalism. Two decades of political struggle taught me the futility of this path. Administering factories in a capitalist market inevitably leads back to exploitation and oppression. Nothing short of smashing the whole capitalist apparatus with communist revolution will free our class.

I related my experience in El Salvador. In 1992, ending a 12-year civil war with "peace accords," FMLN leaders said we were in a "new stage of the revolution," feeding us the illusion that the socio-economic changes we had fought for were here.

Under this illusion I joined an "association" of FMLN members. Among them were members of the misnamed "Communist" Party of El Salvador, the main promoters of this association. Their goal was obtaining credit and buying goods produced in the FMLN's factories. During the war, these shops produced shoes and uniforms for the fighters. However, when the fighting ended, they started producing for the civilian market.

With credit we opened two stores with the idea of selling goods at low prices to benefit the neediest people. But the illusionary ambition to make quick money flourished in some of the supposed "revolutionaries." Their price for the shoes was almost triple the production cost. As they raised prices, they dreamt of each "associate" having his own store. To achieve this, they hired a saleswoman. Before long, they used their positions as bosses to make sexual advances toward her.

In previous jobs, I had seen supervisors take similar advantage of women workers' need to work. I had fought it and refused to be silent now. At a "partners" meeting, I demanded respect for the saleswoman. "If she wants us," they replied, "there's no problem."

"We can't go from being exploited to being exploiters," I argued. "We've fought against this and shouldn't do it now." I explained surplus value, saying the price of the goods was too high. This conflicted with the association's plans. They labeled me a "conformist" (I was settling for too little). With this thinking, the business wouldn't grow.

They were correct, but essentially my ideas weren't so different from theirs. I only wanted to sell the shoes for less, not stop selling them altogether. I agreed with profits, but lower ones. Our clients were exploited workers and we, the "revolutionary" businessmen, only wanted "a drop more" of the workers' sweat.

I knew nothing about communism, but was class conscious. In defending workers, it didn't matter if I had to risk my life, but I never thought I'd have to confront those who said they had also fought for the workers' interests.

In one of the last confrontations, the association president told me, "The two of us don't fit here. Either you leave or I leave. I'm not afraid to die." "Neither am I," I replied. We talked coldly and seriously, knowing that bodies continued appearing in the streets of San Salvador and the possibility existed that one of us would be among them.

I decided to leave. "No more `politics' for me," I said. I began thinking I had wasted my time trying to achieve a different society for the workers. That prompted my emigration to the U.S. Here my idea of peacefully leaving the class struggle also changed. The super-exploitation in the factories and learning about real communist ideas changed my mind.

Today I see workers' movement to "take over the factories," in South America, led by liberal bosses like Chavez (Venezuela) and Lula (Brazil) along with "revolutionary" union leaders. They champion the dangerous illusion that workers can escape exploitation or class struggle with these take-overs. My example disproves this. Under capitalism, you're either an exploiter or are exploited -- there's no third road. These "factory take-overs" continue to depend on exploitation, sale of commodities, legalization by the courts and bank loans.

Commodities (produced for sale), the market, wages and money must be eliminated; they're the material basis of capitalism. Anywhere they exist, capitalism maintains its essence, no matter who administers it.

Cooperatives, workers' associations, factories rescued and "run" by workers, do not change the essence of capitalism. Socialism maintained the market, including the sale and exploitation of labor power -- wages, as --PLP's "Road to Revolution IV" explains. The solution lies in building a mass international revolutionary communist movement to destroy capitalism and build a new communist society based on production for the needs of the whole working class, not for sale and profit.

Red Worker from Central America

Frame-up of Anti-Racist Fighters Defeated

BRIDGEWATER, N.J., Dec. 14 -- All charges against four anti-racist demonstrators were dropped here today as each defendant pled guilty to "speaking too loudly," a minor municipal ordinance offense and paid a small fine. The four had been arrested last June while protesting a recruiting drive by the racist Minuteman Project at the Bridgewater Sports Arena. This hearing was the culmination of a six-month-long battle to fight charges of assault, disorderly conduct and trespassing, following a brutal attack on one of the anti-racists by a Somerset County SWAT cop.

Over 40 people attended the hearing to support the defendants, filling the small courtroom. The crowd included members from the Professional Staff Congress of the City University of NY. That union's Executive Council had passed a strong class-conscious resolution opposing the Minutemen and contributed $500 to the legal defense fund.

After the hearing, at a rally outside the courtroom, the anti-racist who had been brutalized gave a rousing speech. Another speaker explained the importance of this case in exposing the bosses' increased drive for "homeland security." Although the rulers' state power still allows them to promote racism and fascism, the speaker called on those present to fight for the day when the working class, led by PLP, will take that power away from them.

This struggle is not over. We're suing the cops for the arrest and fascist assault on our comrade. We'll bring people to the court for that case, too.

Four PLP members in Farmingville, NY still face charges for their July protest against racist anti-immigrant filth there. Two anti-racists in California face more serious charges. An Anti-Racist Legal Defense Fund has been established to carry on these court cases. This showed once again the importance of an ongoing legal defense committee (see box).

There will be bigger battles in the future. We must train ourselves to fight on all fronts, including the courts. As fascism grows, and the capitalists fight bigger wars to control the world, the battles we lead can begin to challenge their hold on the masses. The fight for workers' power can emerge from that cauldron of struggle.

Anti-Racist Legal Strategy

Members and friends of PLP, joining together as the Bridgewater Legal Defense Committee, applied the lessons we've learned through years of fighting back against the capitalist legal system. That system has, as one of its main purposes, crushing working-class struggle and resistance.

In most attorney-client relationships, the attorney is the "expert," the legal system is a maze of mysterious rules and procedures and the client is a passive participant. Our attorneys and defendants met together regularly. We discussed the politics of the events, the prosecution's and legal system's points of weakness, and the tactics that we developed along the way, including mass support, both inside and outside the courtroom.

We remained strong and united in our commitment that no defendant would be sacrificed in order to obtain a better deal for any other defendant. Our willingness to force the prosecution to take us to trial unless they were willing to give us an acceptable plea agreement again proved to be a winning strategy.

D.C. Winter Project Combines Marxist Study with Pro-Worker Action

During the last two weeks of December, 18 comrades and friends kicked off the Washington, D.C. area's first Winter Project with vigorous discussions about the struggle in transit (led by two transit workers), the battle at Hampton University, the fight against the Minutemen, and the need to study and learn about revolutionary strategy. We distributed over 60 CHALLENGES and more than 400 party flyers to the English professors at the Modern Language Association's annual meeting. We also rode buses ("ride-alongs") with our transit comrades, distributing PL literature to passengers talking politics with the driver.

The intense political readings and discussion during the project included Lenin's "What Is To Be Done," about the need for a disciplined party with a well-distributed newspaper, stressing revolution over reform. We saw the parallels with PLP's "Reform and Revolution" document. Friends and comrades made presentations on the Party's Road to Revolution 3 and 4, and on Anna Louise Strong's 1957 book, "The Stalin Era" (available on PLP's website), published shortly after Khrushchev attacked Stalin and consolidated the capitalist road in the Soviet Union.

This book helped us understand and debunk the myths about the Soviet Union and its leadership and refute anti-Stalin lies. Comrades, friends and potential future Party members discussed the Soviet Union and the ideas and lessons to be learned. One lesson: taking power is not as difficult as holding it amid revisionist ideas and counter-revolution. As one comrade declared, "The capitalists won't say, `Oh here, take power....it's ALL good.' They'll fight and die trying to hold on to their individualist profit system" -- which means a ruthless revolution is needed.

We also discussed the advances communist leadership made against sexism in the 1920's and 1930's, including a greater move toward wage equalization and in rights for women workers. The Soviet Union was the first to have women bomber pilots! Also, Strong noted the communist fight against the religious mullahs and their oppression of women, important today in fighting the sexism of the Islamic fundamentalists (and the Christian fundamentalists as well).

I was particularly impressed by Strong's account of the energy and enthusiasm of workers in creating this new revolutionary society based on the needs of the working class. Even though the Soviets retained capitalist wage differentials, their commitment to a working-class future should be emulated by us all. One comrade noted he drew that kind of energy when participating in Party actions, saying it would be great if everyone could achieve that level of energy.

The Winter Project created a spark of interest and zeal that will help build our Party and move towards revolution. Everyone should read Strong's book, as well as others on Stalin to better understand him and the Soviet Party's accomplishments at that time, as well as their errors, it is from this that we continue to learn today. All power to the Workers!

D.C. Red

Challenging the Pro-War Dictatorship in Public Health

PHILADELPHIA, PA, Dec. 13 -- There was something liberating about the sight of over 100 health professionals filling the wide carpeted aisle between displays of the newest health care products and public health teaching aids, chanting "One-two-three-four, We don't want your racist war!" The voices of tweed-jacketed professors and graying midwives joined scores of others, the sound filling the cavernous exhibit hall at the annual American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting. Onlookers gaped, many smiled and still others joined the marchers.

By the time the group reached the U.S. Air Force Medical Personnel booth, it had become a giant picket line large enough to completely surround the block of booths containing the recruiters' exhibit. Philadelphia Police and "undercover" Convention Center security "guarded" the Air Force recruiters while a woman from Military Families Speak Out raised a picture of her uniformed son, now back in Iraq for yet another tour. Marchers picked up her chant as they passed: "Support the troops -- Bring them home!"

This mass protest was encouraging, as was the distribution of 2,500 anti-war buttons, but other developments showed there's plenty more to do. The battle between communists in PLP and ruling class representatives for the ideological leadership of health workers intensified at this meeting.

As reported earlier (CHALLENGE, 12/14), APHA's Executive Director, Georges Benjamin, has actively obstructed attempts to publicize the APHA's official anti-war public policy, established in a series of resolutions passed by the APHA's Governing Council in recent years. Although these policies sit on the association's Web site, they've never been communicated to the press or otherwise acted on. Last February, anti-war APHA members started pushing Benjamin and the Executive Board to withhold exhibit space from military recruiters as one way to put teeth in the anti-war policy.

Benjamin vigorously opposed this and personally blocked e-mail distribution of the proposal within one APHA section. His actions were openly challenged in the 200-member Governing Council; a motion called for the APHA central office in Washington, D.C. -- where Benjamin and his staff work -- to "facilitate communication" by distributing mass e-mails for section chairs when requested.

One Councilor said, "I find it outrageous that one person can dictate what will be discussed in e-mails by members of this association." Benjamin lunged to the microphone claiming a "point of personal privilege," meaning he had been personally insulted. The Council Speaker responded, "The Councilor's comments are not appropriate and will be removed from the record!"

Every speaker who followed opposed the motion, including many "progressives" who defended Benjamin because he's the first black Executive Director in decades. The motion was defeated; over 80% voted to support Benjamin. One comrade put the Council vote in perspective saying, "If 20% voted against the Director's authority, that's a few dozen people we need to contact about how to oppose developing fascism inside our `liberal' association."

The PLP members among the 12,000 attending the four-day convention function in a few of the larger sections and caucuses and raised resolutions against the oil war, against collaboration by health personnel in torture and in support of Katrina victims. With friends and colleagues we organize sessions that raise awareness of developing fascism in medicine and the health consequences of imperialist war. The political work combines mass education, organizing struggles against racist and imperialist practices in the health sphere and one-on-one work with colleagues and friends, communists of the future.

We added more CHALLENGE readers during this meeting. One colleague looked particularly tired after the Governing Council confrontation over Benjamin's censorship powers. A comrade asked her, "Does CHALLENGE make any more sense to you now?" She replied, "I've always thought that paper made sense." While our numbers limit our impact, our main task is to use those moments -- when APHA reveals its true nature as part of the ideological and institutional control of a capitalist society moving toward more overt fascism -- to turn these opportunities into new CHALLENGE readers and eventually new members.

Soldiers -- along with veterans and military families -- and black workers are crucial to the revolutionary process. We can strengthen our ties with Military Families Speak Out and the Black Caucus of Health Workers (BCHW), both of whose members are essential to building PLP. Right now, the APHA anti-war activity is mostly all white, and BCHW's anti-racist activity never mentions the war budget that's slashing programs vital to black and other low-income workers.

At next fall's APHA meeting, a solid base of CHALLENGE readers and others, presenting the perspective of soldiers and workers, especially black and Latin workers, can expose both the Democrats and Republicans' imperialist program for the 2006 elections. We must spend the next 11 months strengthening our personal relationships and intensifying the political struggle, enabling us to advance under the increasing backlash from APHA's leadership. Sharpening the contradictions will parallel world events, bringing us closer to the revolutionary society in which public health is a reality.

Under Communism
Soviet Women Fighter Pilots' Struggle for Equality

(Part 2 of series on Soviet women flyers)

The December 14 CHALLENGE described how Soviet women excelled as World War II fighter pilots. This part depicts their struggle for equality. (Quotes are from Anne Noggle's "A Dance With Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II.")

The Soviet Union was the first workers' state to try to end capitalist exploitation. We try to learn from their achievements and mistakes. One of their great achievements was the people's war it waged against the Nazi military machine -- the most powerful and deadly of its time. Some 27 million Soviet workers died in this titanic battle in which women played an important role.

"When the war began we women applied to join the army along with the men, but we were not accepted because the army would not draft women. We protested that we were brought up to believe that women were equal to men. In October, 1941, we learned that three women's air regiments were to be formed."

One woman remembers, "I was promised that I would be appointed flight commander in this squadron, but when I arrived there were all male pilots. Some...were full of indignation saying, `Why? Aren't there any good men?' I told the commander that I would like to be appointed to the position right now but first let these male pilots see what kind of a pilot I am. The commander often tested me and sent me with other crews on missions. Then...I was appointed flight commander."

Another said, "On one airfield there were two regiments, one female and one male. We had the same missions, the same aircraft and the same targets, so we worked together. The female regiment performed better and made more combat flights each night than the male regiment. Once, one of our German prisoners told us, `When the women started bombing our trenches, the radio stations on this line warned all their troops, Attention! Attention! The ladies are in the air! Stay at your shelter!'"

Still another woman pilot recounted, "I was going to reconnoiter the ground and photograph it [with] two fighters to protect my plane...After my transmission I heard, `Why are you speaking in such a tiny voice?' I realized they [the other two fighter pilots] didn't know I was a woman. I managed to photograph the front line even though the Germans made some holes in the plane. I reported from the air...and the person on the ground said, `Thank you, Anechka,' and only then did they [the accompanying pilots] realize I was a woman. I told them, `Thank you, brothers; land, please.' They escorted me to my field, wagged their wings, and flew away."

"When I was assigned to a male regiment, they flew the Lavochkin-5 aircraft, more advanced than our Yak fighters. From the very start the male regimental commander didn't believe we were good pilots. Once he decided to test us,, and said, `In the afternoon we will have a training dogfight between two male crews and you two.' One of us approached their aircraft from the rear and won the mock attack. Everything depended on skill."

"I flew an open cockpit plane -- open to the wind -- and in spite of the armistice [with Finland] we went on flying out the wounded. My life was complicated by the fact that I was...[pregnant]. When in June I announced to the commander that I was expecting a baby, he was astonished. He had never even noticed.... It had never occurred to him that there should be a gynecologist on the medical test board."

Toward the end of WWII, one woman said, "I have always been a devoted Communist, and I have worked for the benefit of my people. There is an opinion about women in combat that a woman stops being a woman after bombing, destroying, and killing, that she becomes crude and tough. That is not true; we all remained kind, compassionate, and loving. We became...more caring of our children, our parents, and the land that has nourished us."

Communism will teach all men, as well as women, that -- without capitalist exploitation -- everyone can be kind, compassionate and loving.

Banks, Loans Sharks Make War on GI's

The hypocrisy of the U.S. imperialist war machine knows no bounds. Exposing the rulers' calls to "support our troops" in Iraq, the bosses' profit system has trapped GI's into the clutches of "legal" loan sharks who force these GI's to support that very profit system to the tune of $40 billion a year. CHALLENGE revealed this fraud some time ago, but it appears to have increased, affecting possibly 300,000 GI's. These loans are incurring interest rates far exceeding even those demanded by the Mafia.

It works this way: A GI goes to a "payday store" and shows a pay stub and proof of a bank account to borrow $100 for a charge of $120. The borrower writes a check for $120 and postdates the check to next payday. After two weeks, if the borrower can't pay, the loan is rolled over until next pay day for another $20. The Pentagon says "most troops go through four or five rollovers."

"Army Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Burden,...now serving in Iraq, told Congress he paid back $1,400 on an original loan of $300." (all quotes in this article are from the N.Y. Daily News, 12/26) That's an interest rate of nearly 400%! "It just kind of keeps snowballing if you don't have the money to cover it," Burden said.

"The troops get roped into it and they can't get out," says Joyce Raezer of the National Military Families Association. "It becomes a spiral."

A Pentagon official "estimated that 7% of the active-duty military, or 100,000 troops, used the loans, but consumer groups said the number could be as high as 20%," or nearly 300,000.

The 22,000 U.S. outlets involved in this $40 billion payday scam are backed by some of the country's biggest banks who provide these leeches with the set-up money they need to get started and keep going. Thus, these bankers are raking in part of the profits through the interest they charge the payday outfits for the banks' loans to them.

The drive to maintain these big-time loan sharks is a bi-partisan affair. "The loan industry's powerful lobbyists, both Democratic and Republican, are fighting hard to keep the interest windfalls, which in at least one case topped 500%." Opposing any limits is Maria Echevista, a lobbyist for the payday business association, and a deputy chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton.

Of course, nobody seems to ask WHY the GI's need the loans in the first place. The fact is, the brass has ordered up tens of thousands of Reservists and National Guard troops, paying them a good deal less than their civilian incomes. This has forced them to borrow to make up the difference in order to meet their family's bills. Talk about putting troops in harm's way!

Not only does this imperialist system use GI's as cannon fodder to fight their oil wars but then it turns around and makes them pay the system interest to support their families while dying for the bosses while killing tens of thousands of Iraqi workers and their families.

`Monk' Builds Sympathy for Cops

"Monk" is a witty and entertaining TV show about an obsessive compulsive cop who has an almost miraculous ability to solve crimes. (Meanwhile, he's treated rather as a "freak" -- in one episode all of his friends reject and ridicule him, selling out to the TV star who, of course, turns out to be the killer.)

It's an easy show to get sucked into -- and I did. I pretended to myself that it was just in fun, that the "bad guys" (as the cops say of anyone they don't like) deserved to be caught. I used to feel the same way about the original "Columbo" series, where a cop "up" from the working class was always able to solve the crime, even in the face of frequent opposition from police higher-ups. The guilty in "Columbo" were almost always rich people, so one could relate to this guy. One or two shows changed my mind: he bulldogged even people with absolutely justifiable motives for their crime.

The same is true of the "Monk" series -- only it's worse. In between solving crimes, Monk manages to take backhanded slaps at unions, and to praise "tort reform" which, as he defines it, is to stop the ability of people to sue, with the threat that if they lose their case they have to pay court costs. In practice this sympathy for the "overburdened court system" means people who have been screwed by rich corporations will be frightened to fight back. (Of course, I'm not saying the court system answers what's being done to working people, but there are times when, short of revolution, one must get a good lawyer and fight back. The hero Monk says that's a bad thing to do, so don't try it.)

But a particular episode really slapped me in the back of my head for not having been sharp enough to see what was going on.

Because of his condition, Monk was thrown off the force years back, and now he's used as a "consultant." In one episode, the wife of his boss, Lieutenant Stottlemeyer, is involved in a car crash caused by a man trying to prevent the cops from finding a gun he used to kill someone.

Stottlemeyer, as anyone would be, is horrified and angry that his wife may die. Though she pulls through, in his "justifiable rage" Stottlemeyer attacks union strikers who he believes may have caused the crash. Monk finds out the union's not at fault, and he tries to calm down his lieutenant, to little effect. When Monk and his female assistant learn who really caused the crash, Stottlemeyer tries to physically attack that man, but Monk nobly keeps the attack at a minimum. It all ends peacefully enough.

But it struck me that when workers -- say the ones who died or lost their homes and belongings recently in New Orleans -- are screwed openly by a combination of big business and government, and then prevented by cops and courts from doing anything about it, they're treated as "crazy" or "unreasonable" in their attempts to do something about it.

We can't root for cute and witty cops any more than we can cheer on brutal cops. While some of us may know a nice person who took that job, in my experience, most change for the worse. Those who keep some sort of ethic and morality will inevitably have to protest the rotten cop -- or quit the "force." Most stay.

In a way, shows like "Monk" and "Columbo" are instructive: because the cops and the courts operate to prevent us from fighting back, generally only a revolutionary attitude works to fight back. (Note how Lynne Stewart is facing jail because she attempted to fight for her client.)

Joining the revolutionary Progressive Labor Party is the first step in changing the heroes into those who actually fight for us.

Up North Reader

LETTERS

Class Consciousness Emerges on Picket Line

The recent TWU strike was very inspiring. It showed that when workers are organized with class consciousness they have the power to change society for the better. The week before the strike my union passed a resolution supporting any transit workers' action. We planned to send workers to each bus depot. When the strike began, we arrived bearing signs reading, "Right to Organize, Right to Strike!" We joined the picket line at one of several depots where workers walked out on the bosses' system.

Workers gave us thumbs up. They thanked us and eagerly spoke with us. One worker told me he was a veteran of two wars and that the rulers sacrifice workers to enrich themselves. His high level of consciousness was very impressive.

Several workers described the deplorable working conditions. We agreed on the need to "hold the line" on pensions to protect future workers. These workers clearly knew their action was setting a militant precedent for workers nationally. We mentioned the Northwest, GM and Ford workers who were facing similar vicious attacks. One worker said the bosses' pension demand was a divide-and-conquer strategy, creating a divisive tier system. The bosses' attacks, media lies and slander provoked another worker to shout, "This is a fascist society!" We noted that Hitler and Mussolini broke the back of labor, the same as U.S. bosses now.

The next day, we started a chant with a few pickets and the whole line enthusiastically joined, "They say give back, We say fight back!" When we left the line, the workers gave us high fives and heartily thanked us for our support.

But that was not all. We made several contacts and drew up a plan for rank-and-filers to organize against the strike-breaking Taylor Law and to push for all city unions to bargain as one. We agreed that rank-and-filers shouldn't wait for their crooked leadership to make this happen. The leadership of many NYC unions made lots of promises but delivered nothing during the strike. Workers would be better off if they started organizing each other. Together we could bust the anti-labor laws and call crippling general strikes. This strike line was truly a school for communism.

Red Duo

Barcelona Bus Drivers Greet NYC Strikers

The following letter was sent to PLP:

Comrades,

We in the CGT union local in the bus company of Barcelona, Spain, are following with much interest the transit workers' strike in New York.

We would like to send our solidarity greetings to those workers who are defying a regime that forbids them the right to strike. We are asking you to send them our solidarity greetings....

Mercader
CGT delegate, Barcelona buses

Strikers Cheer Student, Teacher Support

During the recent NYC transit strike, a group of college students and a teacher had some great experiences, both on the picket lines and at our jobs and schools.

The overwhelming response at my job was to support the strikers 100%. Although these hourly or commissioned workers aren't paid if they can't get in, they understood the larger importance of the transit workers' action. We had some really sharp discussion about the mis-treatment of the transit workers, and how their demands would benefit other workers.

On the lines the strikers greeted us -- and our signs: "Teachers and Students Support Transit Workers" and "Smash Racism" -- with tremendous cheers. At every line strikers grabbed our literature, which linked their fight to the war and to the need to smash capitalism.

We heard many strikers' stories. Although most of them clearly understood the issues in the contract fight and why the bosses want to save money on their backs, PLP's role with the pickets and back at the job must be to broaden the struggle and win these workers to fight for the working class worldwide.

One mechanic has since kept in touch with me because he wants to report how the returning workers are treated by their bosses and about further struggles. He knows now that CHALLENGE will tell the truth about class struggle.

PL Strike Supporter

Transit Fight Helps Teachers

Some teachers in my NYC high school met and agreed to support the transit strikers by collecting money, joining the picket lines and building support among other teachers. One of many reasons why teachers backed the transit workers was that they were fighting our fight, too -- we just got sold a really horrible contract.

Several teachers were active collecting over $200 and writing flyers and notices. When we joined the lines, the pickets were delighted to have our support and applauded us. We told them they were the heroes, not us. We distributed CHALLENGES and leaflets, and brought money that we'd raised to the picket captains.

Not all teachers supported the strike -- some fell for the bosses' propaganda that the workers were attacking us by striking. The school helped this along by doing nothing about organizing carpools for teachers to get to work. Some were angry at spending money for cabs, or being unable to get in at all.

One struggle was turning people's anger toward the ruling class, not the strikers. A worker in my department missed one day, and then paid $25 to get in by cab. When I asked for a contribution he really became angry. We've shared teaching materials and are developing a relationship, so we were able to talk and get past his anger. He then contributed $5. Often the personal ties we build can lead to political gains.

Two people who stepped forward are CHALLENGE readers and have moved closer to PLP. One distributed the paper to strikers. The other collected money and towards the end of the strike was thinking about joining the Party. Our organizing strike support has opened up many opportunities to advance our ideas and class struggle.

Red Teacher

Bosses' Media Unite to Attack Strikers

One lesson of the New York transit strike was the role of the media as an arm of the state. From the "right-wing" Post to the "liberal" Times, all were unified in "reporting" that people were angry at the hardship caused by the walkout.

Print, television and radio media all played quote after quote of upset, put-out people. On the second day, a reporter for the "liberal" NY1-TV said she was interviewing people who supported the strike as well as those upset by it. This "balanced" perspective was too much for the morning anchor, the very liberal Pat Kierney, to let stand. He practically forced her to say that the "majority" of people were angry at the strikers.

This view contrasted sharply with what was happening in the real world. On the street, at many PLP members' jobs and when talking to friends, the feeling was for lots of support for the strike.

Sure, there were people who were angry, and others who said what the TV people seemed to ask for. But most people, even those walking many miles to work, didn't seem angry at the strikers.

Ironically, NY1-TV released a poll the day after the strike ended showing a majority felt the workers' demands were "fair," with more people blaming the MTA bosses for the strike than blaming the workers.

Wonder why they didn't run that poll on day 2 of the strike?

A Comrade

U.S. Bosses Aim to Slaughter Pensions

On a picket line during the recent NYC transit strike, I asked a bus driver about management's demand to increase the retirement age from 55 to 62. He said there were many days when his back ached after a day of driving his bus, and that he couldn't envision driving a bus in his late fifties. 'Besides," he continued, "shouldn't we have the right to enjoy our final years with dignity?"

Good question. The average U.S. life expectancy is in the mid-seventies (probably less for industrial workers). A worker retiring at 55 has roughly 20 years to live. (It's probably less since most workers can't retire at 55, both because their pensions aren't adequate and they're not collecting Social Security yet.) So how will workers spend the last two decades of their lives?

That's a social question, determined by class struggle. The capitalist class - and their politician agents - are determined to reduce pension and Social Security because they cut into profits, through higher labor costs as Social Security is half paid by employers. They plan to reduce pension costs by forcing workers to (a) retire later; (b) contribute more to their pension plans; and (c) convert defined-benefit plans to 401(K)-type plans. Under Social Security workers receive a definite amount each month. But under 401-(K) plans, employees contribute to their own pension investment plan. These are vastly under-funded, and provide only a fraction of what retirees will actually need to live.

According to the NY Times, only 20% of private sector workers have defined-benefit plans, down from 40% in 1960. Many private companies have switched to 401(K)s because they're less costly for the owners. Many large companies have reneged on their pension contributions, forcing a federal agency to pick up the tab, while paying workers only a fraction of their "guarantees." In California, Schwarzenegger attempted to replace the defined-benefit plan with a 401(K), greatly reducing benefits for State workers.

The attack on the NYC transit workers was part of the ruling class's plan to cut overall pension costs, enthusiastically supported by billionaire Mayor Bloomberg and Presidential candidate Governor Pataki. Bloomberg explicitly said that city-worker pensions must be cut, and that the MTA was leading the way. And who does this racist mayor pick on as the targets in this anti-pension attack? The mostly black and Latin transit workers.

The fact is the strike cost NYC hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue while the Times reported that the MTA's demand would have saved only $15 million in pension costs in the first three years. This only makes sense if one understands that the ruling class as a whole is willing to bear a costly strike as part of an overall goal to worsen pensions for all city and state employees, and then the entire working class (and, as usual, start the attack with a mostly black and Latin work-force).

Bloomberg said he had received hundreds of messages from people without pensions complaining about transit workers striking against forcing new workers to pay 6% of their salaries to their pension (present workers pay 2%). Bloomberg was fanning resentment among lower-paid, non-unionized and white collar workers - without pensions and health benefits - towards unionized workers who have managed to hold on to some of these gains that were won by previous strikes and struggles but have now become too expensive for a capitalism in crisis. This bosses' ploy tends to weaken the unionized workers and bring them closer to the level of the non-union workers, while the bosses laugh all the way to the bank.

While workers' intense class struggle can fight these attacks, ultimately only a society free of profits and bosses - communism - can devote all of the value produced by workers to the well-being of the working class as a whole, as determined collectively by our class.

A Reader

CHALLENGE comments:

We agree but would add that the U.S. bosses' campaign to reduce employee pension and health plans - as well as wages and corporate taxes -- is driven by the necessity to meet competition from international corporate rivals, who are virtually free of worker health care costs because of government-paid plans, or who function in countries with no health benefits whatsoever. This lowers their labor costs relative to U.S. bosses who must pay out billions in health benefits fought for by workers here, where there is no government health insurance for workers under 65 unless they are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.

Likewise, to meet increased competition from both U.S. bosses and low-wage countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, European bosses are seeking to drastically cut long-held social services to lower their own labor costs.

Hospital Workers Back Strikers

When the NYC transit strike began, my son and I made the 45-minute walk from our house on a cold and windy day to join the workers on the picket line. I distributed 15 CHALLENGES to the strikers. During my two days on the picket line, I shared the ideas in the paper and noted the need for a mass communist party for all workers.

I told them I'm a hospital worker in solidarity with them. They welcomed my support. I started some chants on the picket line: "Whose trains? Our trains! Whose subway? Our subway!" And, "The Workers, United, will never be defeated!"

Back at the hospital, I encouraged coworkers to join the picket line nearest to their neighborhood. We had many discussions about the strike. One worker stated that it "would take a revolution" to break the Taylor Law. All strikes are considered illegal by the bosses."

The next day two workers from the hospital joined the picket line. I interviewed a few transit workers about the strike and conditions below Ground Zero on 9/11.Their responses:

"The work is hard and dangerous. It's hazardous to your health. You're working with lead and other forms of chemicals."

"The life span of a transit worker ends around 65."

"Our union should have called on workers from other unions to join the picket line. The union hasn't raised a strike fund."

Despite this, the workers seemed very upbeat as they defied the Taylor Law.

A Hospital comrade

Youth Stand on Workers' Side

As a working-class youth I believe transit workers were right to strike. It demonstrated their power. Working-class youth should stand alongside and ally with the workers in solidarity to fight back against the capitalist system exploiting us all. This alliance is crucial in working towards a communist revolution.

At our PLP club study group held days before the strike, one comrade said the transit workers are the heart and soul of New York and we should support them. Others added that the strike is necessary to show that people can protest their treatment in the workplace. Workers really have NO rights under capitalism.

My school stands across the street from a transit workshop picketed by the workers. On the day before the strike there was a rally right outside my school. After school a group of my classmates, members of my debate team and a few teachers bundled up in the freezing cold and talked with the workers. I came to realize that the workers were fighting for more than bigger paychecks and pensions, that they also cared about the future of the working class. When I pointed to capitalism as our common enemy, a worker on the line hugged me.

This strike demonstrates that the working class is journeying on the road to revolution. It shows that workers' power is enhanced through the amount of people standing with them. We need a worker-youth alliance to fight back. The transit strike is a step towards this and can lead to developing a communist society. This struggle needs masses of people, young and old. The workers, united, will never be defeated.

Red Youth

Morales' Socialism Protects Bosses

Evo Morales has been elected as the "first Indian President of Bolivia." His Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) is supposed to be a threat to capitalism. But, again, this only highlights why PLP fights for communism, not socialism. Morales and his socialist MAS party affirm abstract principles like ending exploitation and racism, building "economic community and social justice and protecting the environment. But they can't achieve this while rejecting the concrete goal of destroying capitalism. Morales can't "move toward socialism" while promising to respect and protect private (capitalist) property.

Major historical socialist movements - especially the Bolsheviks who established the Soviet Union - were far to the left of Morales, MAS and other current socialists. They fought for power by smashing the bosses' government rather than working within it, destroying capitalism rather than reforming it. They saw socialism as an immediate step toward communism, not an abstract ideal.

We've learned valuable lessons from these heroic achievements. One of PLP's most important contributions to the working class is our recognition that socialism not only did not, but cannot lead to communism. Socialism maintained and nurtured key elements of capitalism (such as nationalism and the wage system) with the disastrous results seen today in former socialist countries like Russia and China. That's why -- as CHALLENGE says on page 2 -- we fight directly for communism.

That's also why I think it's unfortunate that some of the contributions to the useful "Under Communism" series obscure the differences between socialism and communism. It's certainly important to laud the Soviet Union's achievements in fighting racism, fascism and sexism. It's just as important to acknowledge their limitations. Articles praising the former Soviet Union -- under the heading "Under Communism" -- without also explaining the sources of its reversal, can leave the mistaken impression that socialism and communism are basically the same.

Let's strive to be more consistently dialectical in our efforts to learn from history and envision more clearly the communist future PLP fights for.

A Comrade

Using CHALLENGE to Fight Factory Fascism

What does it mean to be political and militant in a factory under fascist conditions? Is it one individual confronting management, or is it organizing a base for class struggle, fortified with a network of CHALLENGE readers? This thought arose after Humberto, a co-worker (and CHALLENGE reader) said to me, "I thought you were political and militant. Why didn't you speak out?" (at a meeting between the workers and the company manager who related the importance of our work for national security).

Management detailed the use of our products for homeland security and the "war against terror" - that we "should be proud of our contribution to freedom." The company manager said they wanted to outsource work, consolidate all the shops and eliminate old unused machines, also saying we "needed to be more careful" - clean up any spills we spot and tell the boss if we see someone doing something wrong.

One government representative stressed the importance of this work being done "in-house," not outsourced.

Most of my shift of machinists and assembly workers was there. The morning shift had filled the room. The number of workers they said took in-house training was suspect - it nearly matched the total number of workers. Yet most of us haven't been trained.

I wanted to expose the government rep's praise for our "doing a good job" and lauding company for keeping the work in-house. But most of the work is already outsourced. We're retained because some aspects of the work are proprietary; only this company can do it.

But there was a contradiction: the VP intended to eliminate machines and looked to outsource some work, while the government representative said the work should stay in-house. Would the work be kept here based on "company values" and the "integrity" written on the back of our badges? Or will it be profits and shareholders' interests not written on the back of the badges? My heart was pounding when they asked for our questions, but I did not say anything, realizing we had no organization or plans.

When I spoke to my friend Ramon, he said my question was very good, but if I asked it I'd be "a marked man." He wanted to ask if we were doing "so well why weren't we getting any more overtime and why couldn't he get the grinding wheels he needed for some jobs. I replied that it's because they want us to do more with less. Another worker agreed that I had a good question, but asking it would end my tenure in this factory.

Humberto was angry, demanding, "Why didn't you speak out? You know those classes they're offering are only for managers and engineers, not for the machinists."

"The whole meeting was propaganda," I replied. "It was about outsourcing, about working harder and faster to keep our jobs under threat of outsourcing," I continued. "That was their main demand. Besides, if I said something, who would back me up?" Humberto said, "I would."

"But we're only two," I countered. "Who else is with us?" They'd list us for getting fired. We have no organization. They outlined their demands but what are ours?"

"We could have come up with some on the spot," he said. "Then other workers might have said something."

"Yeah, but we don't really know that, do we?" I asked. "We must have a plan. Before the next meeting we need to assemble other workers in the shop and develop our demands. Then we can meet theirs with ours."

It's becoming clearer that to reach this point, we must talk to more workers, to deepen their understanding that the source of all these attacks on us is the capitalist system. Our best weapon for this is CHALLENGE. Increasing the number of workers who read, study and distribute our paper will help us sharpen the class struggle and use it as a school for communism.

West Coast Red Worker

RED EYE ON THE NEWS

`We do torture' US school could boast

The US military ran the notorious School of the Americas (SOA) from 1946 to 1984, a sinister educational institution that, if it had a motto, might have been "We do torture." It is here in Panama, and later at the schools' new location in Fort Benning, Georgia, that the roots of the current torture scandal can be found.

Some Panama school graduates went on to commit the continent's greatest war crimes of the past half-century: the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero and six Jesuit priests in El Salvador, the systematic theft of babies from Argentina's "disappeared" prisoners; the massacre of 900 civilians in El Mozote in El Salvador; and military coups too numerous to list here....

The embrace of torture by US officials has been integral to American foreign policy. GW, 12/22)

Big biz robs us no matter who is elected

There is nothing unusual about handouts for private companies. In his book Perverse Subsidies, published in 2001, Professor Norman Myers estimates that when you add the direct payments US corporations receive to the wider costs they oblige society to carry, you come up with a figure of $2.6 trillion, or roughly five times as much as the profits they make....

It would be tempting to hold Bush responsible for this, but the oil firms were scooping up taxpayers' money long before they put their robot in the White House. Myers reports that between 1993 and mid-1996 "American oil and gas companies gave $10.3m to political campaigns and received tax breaks worth $4bn." (GW, 1/5)

US, Britain plan hidden control of Iraq oil

November 21, a consortium of U.K- and U.S.-based policy groups published Crude Designs: the rip-off of Iraq's oil wealth, a 48-page exposé of the slick plan devised by the United States and Great Britain to take over Iraq's oil profits. Read it yourself at www.crudedesigns.org

It says, "Iraqi public opinion is strongly opposed to handing control over oil development to foreign companies. But with the active involvement of the U.S. and British governments a group of powerful Iraqi politicians is pushing for a system of long-term contracts with foreign oil companies which will be beyond the reach of Iraqi courts, public scrutiny or democratic control." (San Antonio Express-News)

Shantytowns erupt, losing faith in SA gov't

South Africa's sprawling shantytowns have begun to erupt, sometimes violently, in protest over the government's inability to deliver the better life that the end of apartheid seemed to herald a dozen years ago.

At a hillside shantytown in Durban called Foreman Road....the only measurable improvements to the residents' lives amounted to a single water standpipe and four scrap-wood privies. Electricity and real toilets were a pipe dream....

The number of shanty dwellers has grown by as much as 50 percent to 12.5 million people.

Unemployment, estimated at 26 percent in 1994, has soared to roughly 40 percent.... 881 protests rocked slums in the...year; unofficial tallies say that at least 50 percent were violent.... Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria estimated that the minister's tally was at least five times the number of any comparable previous period....

Said [Council analyst David] Hensen.... "It shows that ordinary people are now feeling that they can only get ahead by coming out on the streets and mobilizing -- and those are the poorest people in society. That's a sea change from the position in, say 1994, when everyone was expecting great changes from above." (NYT, 12/25)

Workers founded science, not just great men

In writing about science...historians celebrate a few great names -- Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein -- and neglect contributions of common, ordinary people who were not afraid to get their hands dirty. With "A People's History of Science," Conner tries to help right the balance. The triumphs of science rest on "massive foundations created by humble laborers," he writes....

An accomplished army of the anonymous bequeathed...their tools, data, problems, ideas and even, Conner argues, the scientific method itself....

Tough, trial-and-error, sometimes live-or-die work...was gradually refined into the intellectual and rarefied pursuit we call science. (NYT, 12/18)

CHALLENGE is tri-weekly during the end of December. We wish our readers a 2006 full of struggles for a world without bosses.

Anti-Racist Movement Growing in the South:: Katrina Survivors Organizing Fight-Back

Student Protest Defies Hampton U. Bosses

a href="#Langston Hughes on Hampton’s Racism">"angston Hughes on Hampton’s Racism

Boeing Strikers Fighting for Future Workers

a href="#Garment Workers’ Unity Stops Bosses Cold">"arment Workers' Unity Stops Bosses Cold

a href="#Auto Workers Shouldn’t Pay For GM-Ford Decline">"uto Workers Shouldn’t Pay For GM-Ford Decline

The Struggle at CUNY: Building Solidarity Between Workers and Students

Cook County Rank-&-File Unite, Demand Strike vs. Give-backs

Lynne Stewart Case: Hundreds Take Stand vs. Police State Attack

Homecare Workers Tell Off Sellout Union Bosses

Toledo Cops Protect Nazis, Attack Anti-Fascists

Home Health Care Workers Strike Over Racist Poverty Pay

LETTERS

Anti-war Conference Spawns New Activists

France: Clear Rebels of Deadly Assault

Anti-Racist Holiday Excites Co-Workers

Soccer Players Score Against Racism

Back Anti-Minutemen Protesters

Language-Literature Profs Planning Counter-Attack vs. Fascist Control

a href="#‘Land of Dead’ Review">‘L"nd of Dead’ Review

REDEYEZ

• Profiteers rob poorest countries of trillions
• Nobelest Pinter roasts US lies and brutality
• Ruling class $ goes to Iraq, not New Orleans
• US capitalism up while most families down
• Bosses’ media hypnotize public with lies
• Unions shrink as bosses strongarm workers

Slavery Built New York

UNDER COMMUNISM: What will science be like?

Anti-Racist Movement Growing in the South:

Katrina Survivors Organizing Fight-Back

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 10 — "I’ve been bumped around to four different places since Katrina. Now I’m in a hotel in downtown New Orleans with a whole bunch of other people. They say they’re going to put us out soon, and I don’t know where we’ll go." The speaker, a woman in her fifties, was standing in front of City Hall at the concluding rally of the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) march today. "What we’ll probably do is walk in that door and camp on the floor till they find some housing for us," said another homeless resident. If the City doesn’t do something to help these people, they’ll have to arrest a whole bunch of people. They’ll have to build a whole bunch of jails."

About 1,200 hurricane survivors and their supporters from the Gulf Coast and around the country marched behind a big red banner reading, "From Outrage to Action; Justice after Katrina: the People Must Decide." A brass band energized the marchers, who felt stronger and more determined the farther they walked.

Spectators greeted the march enthusiastically, dancing, clapping, shouting or blowing car horns. Although few people were on the streets, many joined the march. One survivor who joined commented, "Something’s got to start. It might as well be now!"

Chants like "I’m Back, You’re Back, Tell [Mayor] Nagin We’re All Back," "Whose Streets? Our Streets," and "What Do We Want? Housing! When Do We Want It? Now!" rang out loud and clear. PLP members led chants like, "FEMA, You Liar, We’ll Set Your Ass On Fire," "The Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated," and "The Only Solution Is Communist Revolution!"

Rally speakers condemned all levels of government for the racist terror against hurricane victims and tied their murderous actions to the war in Iraq. Survivors encouraged New Orleanians to reclaim their homes. This grassroots march barred any politicians or big-name speakers from its platform.

The day before the march, about 500 survivors and activists met in Jackson, Mississippi, to plan further action to fight for the rights of the mainly poor, black workers who were displaced by the ruling class since the hurricane. The energy and commitment of many young people in PHRF was inspiring. These multi-racial youth see the events surrounding Katrina as the beginning of a new anti-racist movement. They fought hard for the agenda and demands of the movement and the voices of the survivors came through in the events.

But nationalists and revisionists (pseudo-leftists) also fought hard to lead and control. Nationalism is the same worldwide: "Follow me because I look or talk like you. Hate those other folks and forget that they’re oppressed workers just like you. Follow me into battle so I can claim my piece of the capitalist pie." The U.S. ruling class uses this ideology to get workers to fight and die in their wars. It poisons any movement claiming to fight racism.

PLP members learned a lot and were very moved by seeing the devastation of New Orleans first-hand. The contents of people’s homes are on the street waiting for pick-up, trees are leaning on power lines, few people are on major streets. But the French Quarter looks like nothing ever happened, as middle-class people living there buy sushi at the corner grocery. A few streets away, black neighborhoods have no electricity, not even street lights or traffic signals. In the wealthier areas, the lights are on again.

We shared our communist ideas and literature with many people at the conference and the march. We exchanged phone numbers with survivors who are totally disgusted with the system and interested in revolutionary ideas. We pointed out to college and high school students who came to help Katrina victims that communism is the only solution to racism. We plan to continue to work with this movement.

The racist attack against black workers after Katrina may have changed the possibilities for class struggle in the U.S. Given the imperialist war in Iraq and the slashing of workers’ living standards to the bone, New Orleans can energize an anti-racist movement. All CHALLENGE readers should do what they can to join and support the struggles of Katrina victims.

Student Protest Defies Hampton U. Bosses

HAMPTON, VA., Dec. 9 — Twenty Hampton University (HU) students protested the war in Iraq, U.S. racism in New Orleans, the AIDS epidemic, and the war in Sudan by distributing flyers and holding discussions in the student cafeteria on November 2. HU administrators and police shut down the activities, detained and videotaped students, confiscated their ID’s, and charged seven students with putting up posters, distributing flyers, and holding a protest without obtaining prior permission — and threatened, in writing, to expel them! If anyone doubted that we’re on the road to fascism, both locally and nationally, lose those doubts. But the HU students have sharpened their activism, are preparing a new offensive against racism, war and repression, and some may be joining the PLP Winter Project in Washington, DC over semester break.

Bold Mass Approach Leads to Advance

The students at this historically black university responded to the administration attacks by reaching out boldly to fellow students and to local and national organizations in which they have been involved (including Amnesty International, United Students Against Sweatshops, and the Campus Antiwar Network). Their participation in these mass organizations provided many friends to call on. Soon hundreds of phone calls and e-mails were pouring into administration offices. The university was embarrassed by local media, and the story quickly spread widely via the wire services and the internet. Two of the seven students wrote an article entitled "Corporate Plantation," a sharp and detailed analysis of recent events and the long history of racist oppression at Hampton. The article has been posted on the internet:

http://blackcommentator.com/162/162_corporate_plantation.html

On the morning of the hearing, several dozen students and others were at the Student Center to support and defend the HU Seven, including supporters from Howard University, who brought petitions of support with 900 signatures, gathered in just two days; the parents of the accused; a faculty advisor; attorneys from both the ACLU and AFSCME; and the director of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office of Amnesty International. Members of predominantly white local anti-war organizations set up a support picket line just outside the University grounds.

Parents and attorneys put the HU administrators on the defensive and exposed the proceedings as a kangaroo court. The administrators rushed through the hearings and quickly announced that all were guilty; six received a "sentence" of 20 hours of community service and one (who had merely passed by the protest activity) was given a "warning." The administration’s clumsy attacks and the students’ bold response have changed the atmosphere on campus, paving the way for more intense struggle.(See article page 2)

Hampton University’s Racist Repression Serves Rulers’ Interests

Many outside supporters could scarcely believe that the Hampton University (HU) administration imposes such restrictive rules on its students (see front page article). Hampton’s near-fascist regime exists not only because its president for over 25 years, William Harvey, is a Republican who has enjoyed close ties to Presidents Reagan, Bush I and Bush II but the school has been run this way ever since its founding in 1868, and plays an important role in sustaining the entire structure of racism in U.S. capitalist society (see box). Many of the over 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) similarly serve the ruling class.

Hampton University was founded by a Union general who believed that blacks and Indians were thousands of years behind whites in moral and social development and therefore must be denied civil and political rights. Hampton trained teachers to be sent throughout the South to try to make blacks accept their subordination as super-exploited agricultural workers in a Jim Crow (segregated) society. Its most famous student was Booker T. Washington, who cloned Hampton at Tuskegee and received a huge endowment from billionaire capitalist Andrew Carnegie. In 1895, in his famous Atlanta speech, Washington openly embraced racial segregation and rejected the struggle for political rights. As W.E.B. Du Bois pointed out, Carnegie and other big capitalists contributed money to Tuskegee and Hampton to foster the movement to maintain black workers as cheap labor to break strikes and unions and thus hold down all workers. One historian called his book about Hampton "Schooling for the New Slavery."

Today Hampton trains black professional, managerial and technical workers to help the ruling class maintain the super-exploitation of black workers in a period of imperialist wars and U.S. decline. That means training Hampton students as army officers in the rulers’ wars; as criminal justice officials in a racist system of mass incarceration of blacks; as professional workers in corporations whose profits depend upon super-exploitation of workers; and as doctors and lawyers in a system that denies black workers access to decent medical and legal services.

To accomplish this mission, Hampton indoctrinates its students to look down on black workers and look up to military, political and corporate leaders such as Colin Powell and Condolezza Rice. For example, Hampton’s president Harvey selected as graduation speaker this past year Alphonso Jackson, Bush’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Jackson has cut Section 8 subsidized housing for poor workers. More recently, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Jackson told the Houston Chronicle that most of New Orleans’ black population should not be allowed to return, and that New Orleans should become a predominantly white city!

The HU administration can deliver its chosen product only by operating in a highly repressive way. But these lackey administrators will not succeed. Black students often choose to come to HBCUs to avoid the racism at predominantly white colleges and universities, and then discover the racism of a heavy-handed black administration. However, in the late 1950’s and 1960’s black students at HBCUs sparked the sit-in movement that spawned the militant Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Their militancy provided leadership and inspiration to the entire student movement in the U.S. and worldwide. Black student leadership today is crucial to the development of an anti-imperialist, anti-racist revolutionary movement, and Hampton’s bold fighters are moving in that direction.

a name="Langston Hughes on Hampton’s Racism">">"angston Hughes on Hampton’s Racism

Langston Hughes, the black communist writer, penned an article in "The Crisis" in 1934 condemning the political conservatism of black colleges. He once was asked by Hampton students to speak to them about two vicious racist incidents — the death of Fisk University’s popular dean of women, caused by the refusal of white hospitals to admit her after a traffic accident, and the beating to death of a Hampton graduate by a white Alabama mob.

Hughes noted, "The students wanted to…protest the…brutality that brought about their deaths…. We began to lay plans for…a Sunday evening protest meeting, from which we would send wires to the press and formulate a memorial to these most recent victims of race hate….

"The faculty sent their… dean of men…to confer with the students. Major Brown [said]…that perhaps the reports we had received…had not been true. Had we verified those reports? I suggested wiring or telephoning immediately to Fisk and to Birmingham for verification. The Major….felt it was better to write. Furthermore,…Hampton did not like the word ‘protest.’ That was not Hampton’s way. He, and Hampton, believe in moving slowly and quietly, and with dignity….

"On and on he talked. When he had finished, the students knew quite clearly that they could not go ahead with their protest meeting…. They knew they would face expulsion and loss of credits if they did so…. Hampton students held no…protest over the mob-death of their own alumnus, nor the death on the road (in a Negro ambulance vainly trying to reach a black hospital) of one of [their]…finest young women. The brave…spirit of that little group of Hampton students who wanted to organize the protest was crushed by the official voice of Hampton…."

Boeing Strikers Fighting for Future Workers

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA — About 1,600 workers in the International Association of Machinist (IAM) struck Boeing’s rocket business Nov. 3. The main issue mirrors the one that sparked the earlier September strike by 18,500 Machinists in the Seattle, Portland and Wichita commercial airplane plants: retiree health care for future hires. "We’re fighting for people who aren’t in the work force yet — people we don’t know," said Gary Quick, an 18-year veteran Boeing employee.

Since Lockheed workers overrode their leaders’ sellout on this issue in the spring, no IAM local leadership has dared to accept such a contract. The Party has helped put this class demand on the front burner, as rank-and-filers in several locals demanded solidarity around the fate of these future hires.

Nonetheless, the ideology of these pro-capitalist union leaders undermines this fight. Rather than hanging patriotic bunting over a small rally of a couple of hundred, we must mobilize the strength of our class. "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains," said Karl Marx in concluding the "Communist Manifesto." These days those words are life and death for our class brothers and sisters.

As reported in the last CHALLENGE, 100,000 workers in Sidney, Australia marched on the Boeing headquarters in support of 25 striking Boeing workers in that country. One thing that infuriated Sidney workers was the sacking of two workers for calling another employee a "scab."

International class consciousness — that calls a scab a scab — stands in stark contrast to the union leaders’ flag-waving nationalism. Nationalism is the ideology of the bosses, an enemy within our ranks. "It’s national security or retirement security," said Peter Peterson, chairperson of the Council on Foreign Relations, the bosses’ premier foreign policy think-tank.

The attack on retiree medical benefits has shifted from the purely economic realm to the political. The bosses are calling for an all-out attack on retirement benefits throughout the country. Although backed up with actuary figures, the real reason behind this attack is the need to wage bigger and more costly wars to maintain control over primarily Mid-east oil. The inter-imperialist rivalry is sharpening and we’ve been added to its list of victims. Appeals to nationalism play right into the bosses’ imperialist plans.

Even as this battle unfolds, SPEEA, the Boeing engineers union, caved in on retiree medical care for future hires. In addition, the rocket workers’ medical care expired and scabs have become a real problem. Now more than ever, these strikers need the class-conscious, revolutionary ideas advocated in the pages of CHALLENGE.

a name="Garment Workers’ Unity Stops Bosses Cold">">"arment Workers’ Unity Stops Bosses Cold

"We should stop production," a garment worker declared when I said Joaquin had quit because he couldn’t stand any more yelling from the factory’s general supervisor. We agreed to discuss a strike with other workers after lunch.

In five minutes, two other workers approached another worker’s machine to relate what had happened. I proposed to them to stop working at noon. Angrily they said, "Why don’t we stop now? Why wait?" "Then we must talk to the others," I responded, realizing I had underestimated the workers’ anger.

In minutes the factory was paralyzed. This wouldn’t have happened so quickly without the help of a co-worker who had gone through similar struggles in another factory. While I talked to my closest friends at one end of the factory, she did the same at the other end. Class consciousness and previous experience were her guides. But what really convinced all the workers was one worker yelling, "An injury to one is an injury to all!"

The machines stopped. We met near the offices and agreed to demand to speak to the boss, who was at her other factory. The general supervisor and an office worker asked, "What’s happening? Why aren’t you working?" Their Spanish was hard to understand. "We want to talk to Maria [the boss]. We don’t want any more harassment. We’re not animals. We want Joaquin to come back, but we don’t want to talk with you," declared the workers angrily.

When the two returned to the office, one worker told everyone that strikes are good weapons against the bosses. He raised the recent rebellion in France — showing we’re part of the same working class — as well as the racist police murders and the immigrant deaths at the border. He said we need to fight back, both inside and outside the factories.

"This is a dictatorship," said another worker who doesn’t work on the sewing machines. "If you don’t fight back, you’ll continue to be exploited." Another said, "Personally they don’t mistreat me because I don’t let them, but they do pressure me to work faster. The machine I work on is dangerous; it has knives and I can get cut. Pressure causes accidents." Then he told how another worker had been injured because of speed-up.

The general supervisor returned with a secretary to translate into Spanish. He argued that since he didn’t speak Spanish well, the workers misunderstand him. "Those who don’t like me raise their hands," he said, expecting a positive response. No one did. The workers answered, "All of us don’t like you." "Then I’ll leave," he said, turning around. "Bye Mister," said one worker." Say goodbye to Mister."

He glared angrily at this worker’s sarcasm and returned to the office. Out came the person in charge of giving out the work, saying, "We spoke to Maria and she said to go back to work and she’ll be here in half an hour to resolve this problem." No one opposed this, but many workers didn’t want to go back until they had talked to the boss.

When the boss arrived she made an announcement on the loudspeaker. "He [the supervisor] has a strong accent and since he doesn’t speak Spanish well, he was misunderstood," the boss said. If you don’t like him, that’s no problem. We’ll find another, but it will always be the same because I like them to be strict." She offered us child care and financial aid for some of our children in school.

The worker who quit came back. I haven’t worked in this factory long but the solidarity of these workers shows that the next step is building closer ties and distributing CHALLENGE to more workers to be able to move this anger towards the long-term fight for communist revolution to end exploitation once and for all. All bosses are the same. We need workers’ power.µ

A Garment Worker

a name="Auto Workers Shouldn’t Pay For GM-Ford Decline">">"uto Workers Shouldn’t Pay For GM-Ford Decline

In a 1997 survey of the world’s auto industry, the British magazine The Economist noted, "By 2000 overcapacity will have risen from 18 million to 22 million units (per year) — equivalent to 80 of the world’s 630 auto assembly plants standing idle." This was one of many indicators pointing to serious problems for world capitalism. Unemployment, idle machinery, loss of capital (plant closings), all loomed large in its immediate future.

While the survey was thorough, hindsight reveals an underestimation of the potential for capitalist growth and investment in China.

But when the next survey was published, Sept. 10, 2005, the Economist had changed its tune. "But globally the auto industry is set for a huge expansion with the motorization of China and India…Garel Rhys, the Director for the Center of Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University in Britain, says…this growth will create the need for 180 new factories…Some experts predict that over the next 20 years more cars will be made than in the entire 110-year history of the industry." From the prospect of shutting down 80 plants to building 180 new ones in eight short years is quite a turn-around.

Then how is it that at this moment General Motors and Ford plan to lay off 30,000 workers each and close up to 18 plants in North America? For decades they were the poster boys for U.S. industrial supremacy. Today, however, the world’s auto industry is expanding while GM and Ford are contracting.

It’s a snapshot of the relative decline of U.S. industrial power. Domestically it shows up in over two million jailed; over 43 million without health insurance; wages falling; hours of full-time work increasing; Arab-Americans jailed without trial; the racist Katrina catastrophe and so on. Financially, it shows up as the world’s biggest debtor nation and being challenged by the euro as a world currency.

The world has changed drastically since World War II ended, when the bosses dreamed of an "American Century" and 80% of the worlds manufactured goods were U.S.-made. Today autos and steel are made everywhere and the challenges to U.S. imperialism are many. Every major industry, from auto and steel to textiles and aerospace, are undergoing dramatic and brutal restructurings as U.S. bosses try to maintain their status as the #1 imperialist in a shrinking world with many players. Europe is undergoing similar changes.

Despite all their layoffs, plant closings and attacks on pensions and health care, one of the U.S. bosses’ main trump cards is that they’re armed to the teeth and able to ensure that the world’s oil market still trades in dollars. The other is the defeat of the old communist movement, which allows them to get away with unlimited attacks on the working class while at the same time the old socialist countries like China have become a source of imperialist investment. However, China’s economic growth is enabling it to turn itself into an imperialist power and a rival of the U.S. and other bosses. This is partly true for India as well.

Even though Japanese and European bosses have a jump-start in the growing Chinese market, GM and Ford are also investing heavily there, building factories and hiring workers at 70 cents-an-hour. While a long strike at Delphi could eat up most of GM’s cash on hand, GM and the UAW appear to be working very hard to avoid that (see below).

All the auto bosses investing in China are dreaming of selling cars to a potential 250 million buyers. But this feeding frenzy will create still another glut of over-capacity, especially if there are serious economic downturns in China, leading to more boarded-up factories and long unemployment lines. Just as the rush to build auto factories in Mexico created more poverty on both sides of the border, now many of those Mexican plants are being shuttered and moved to China. It’s the nature of the beast.

GM and Ford highlight U.S. imperialism’s precarious plight. For decades now, control of the world’s oil has sustained its status as the world’s safest harbor for international capital. With a shrinking industrial base, it needs that capital more than ever. As CHALLENGE has pointed out, today’s war in Iraq is part of a larger plan to grab control of all Middle East oil. The strategic aim is to displace the euro as a rival world currency and open a door of influence in the Asian consumer markets by controlling the key raw material — oil.

All this challenges the working class. Can 60,000 GM and Ford workers (and thousands more in the supplier plants) be thrown out on the streets without a murmur of protest? Shouldn’t we fight for all our unions to send telegrams to the UAW urging support for any strike, including on mass picket lines and in sit-downs, and protest against this attack on our class?

This can be an opportunity for PLP members and friends on the shop floor to once again expose the U.S. bosses’ strategic plan for up to 30 years of oil war. It can also expose the central role of the union hacks who, in the face of preparations for sustained war, promote pro-war patriotism and passivity, as if the working class is merely a victim of history and not the actual agent of change.

Even if such a campaign doesn’t produce strikes or protests, it will help bring our revolutionary communist politics to masses of workers, strengthen our base and expand our revolutionary influence.

The Struggle at CUNY: Building Solidarity Between Workers and Students

(Third of a four-part series)

In 1912, Big Bill Haywood, leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies), stood before thousands of striking textile workers in Lowell, Mass. He held up one hand with each finger extended separately. "This is how the AFL organizes," he said. Then, raising a clenched fist he exclaimed, "This is how the Wobblies organize!" In 1919, Haywood joined and became a leader of the then revolutionary Communist Party USA.

Today, the working class in NYC is on the defensive, lacking real solidarity. Although there’s a "NYC Central Labor Council," in practice union leaders cut their own deals and don’t support each other. All city workers and students face declining wages and deteriorating living conditions as the capitalist class forces them to pay for imperialist wars. The Professional Staff Congress’s (PSC) contract struggle at the City University of New York (CUNY) is one example. Solidarity with other workers and CUNY students would sharpen this struggle, making it more successful. Steeled by united participation in immediate battles, the working class could also begin to look beyond reform, to the need for revolution.

At a September 29 PSC mass meeting, the President of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and the Treasurer of the Transit Workers Union (TWU) promised to support the PSC in our fight. Although informed about the PSC informational picket lines scheduled for Oct 19 and 20, they didn’t organize their membership to support us.

This typifies classic trade unionism: unions rarely look beyond their own ranks. Building solidarity with all workers is not optional or a "second stage," only to be considered after one’s own contract is settled. It’s a vital part of winning economic demands. Rank-and-filers shouldn’t wait for the leadership’s signal to do this. PL members in the PSC proved that even modest efforts can pay off. As a result, on a few campuses members of the UFT and AFSCME’s District Council 37 joined our lines. And sympathetic TWU shop stewards at three bus depots took flyers to distribute to their members.

These stewards agreed about the need to unite against the Taylor Law, which criminalizes public employee strikes, threatening severe penalties for doing so. Fearing this, many CUNY workers would rather settle for a give-back contract. But if the PSC united with other municipal workers, together we could bust this anti-labor law and solidify unity within our own ranks. This occurred in the 1966 transit strike, when tens of thousands of other workers backed TWU members and busted the old strike-breaking Condon-Wadlin Law; in fact, it was that action that led to passage of the Taylor Law. By fighting together we could also break the city’s strategy of enforcing bargaining patterns, in which one union settles low and sets a precedent for other contracts.

The weakness of fighting separately was clear in the current graduate students’ strike at New York University (UAW Local 2110). NYU refuses to negotiate a new contract with the graduate teaching assistants while cutting their health care benefits and threatening to void their next semester appointments if they don’t return to work. While some professors are holding classes off campus, the majority of faculty, staff, and students cross the picket lines as if there were no strike! Ironically, NYU’s adjunct professors are also organized by the UAW (Local 7902). Where is the solidarity even between UAW locals?

PLP says fight to win. To take on the full power of the bosses — be it CUNY or NYU — we must build working-class solidarity across union lines.

For the PSC, this also means developing ties with CUNY students. Some faculty believe that bringing students into union "politics" breaches professional conduct. This is strange coming from a public university with a long history of fierce united student-teacher battles here for open admissions and affirmative action programs — inspired by the anti-racist rebellions and anti-Vietnam war movement of the late 1960’s early ’70’s.

After some delay, the PSC leadership is now taking seriously the need to build a worker-student alliance. First, students were invited to attend the September 29 mass membership meeting. Next, at the informational picket line flyers distributed to students raised the need for solidarity and explained why students should be supportive of CUNY workers and a potential strike. Student reaction was overwhelmingly positive. At one campus, students from an anti-war group joined the picketing by distributing a solidarity flyer and collecting signatures on a petition supporting PSC workers. At other campuses, students led the picket lines with rousing chants like, "Students and Workers United, Will Never Be Defeated!"

Now there’s a strong feeling of worker-student solidarity among workers and students. PSC workers are responding by speaking out against planned tuition hikes. Many CUNY workers and students are won to the idea that give-backs and tuition hikes are related to austerity measures forced on workers by a system that prefers to cut taxes for the rich while funding wars and prisons.

A worker-student alliance is particularly important at CUNY whose student body is overwhelmingly black, Latino and Asian. Racism has been a divisive tool used by the ruling class for centuries. The fact that a majority white faculty can unite with a majority non-white student population sets an example for the whole working class. CUNY’s racist bosses have cut state funding by 70% since 1990. Given that CUNY students come from predominantly lower-income black and Latin families, faculty opposition to tuition hikes in this instance also becomes an anti-racist fight. CUNY’s attack on the faculty is also an attack on students.

To cover up these racist attacks, CUNY bosses try to pit one against the other — telling students that workers’ gains cause tuition hikes. In reality, wages at CUNY have dropped 47% since the early 1970’s while tuition has skyrocketed. (CUNY was tuition-FREE until the ’70’s when its student population switched from predominantly white to mainly black and Latin.) A worker-student alliance will beat this divide-and-conquer strategy and sharpen the fight against racist tuition hikes and give-backs.

These events at CUNY prove that students and workers understand the need to fight together. They demonstrate that the "separate fingers of the hand" are really connected and have a lot to offer each other. The ability to see and make these connections is something communists can offer workers who are artificially divided into unions, movements, "races" and teacher/student categories. As more and more workers are involved in united struggle, they’ll begin to think and act as a class, laying the groundwork for the collective fist of the working class to smash capitalism with communist revolution.

Cook County Rank-&-File Unite, Demand Strike vs. Give-backs

CHICAGO, IL Dec. 1 — "It’s Time For County to Pay! It’s Time For County To Pay!" "They Say Cutback, We Say Fight Back!" These chants and others cut through the freezing temperatures as more than 200 black, Latin, Asian and white men and women workers held a lunchtime picket line at Stroger Cook County Hospital. The SEIU and AFSCME locals that represent thousands of area healthcare workers called the protest. County workers have been bargaining for a new contract for more than a year. The workers in SEIU Local 20 had just voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike.

Some of the pickets work for Hektoen. Their jobs are funded by grants, mainly from the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Their near-unanimous vote rejected a tentative agreement between SEIU and Hektoen. Then they voted to authorize a strike despite the union organizer’s attempted sabotage. During the strike vote they put out a flier stating, "The bosses are Katrina, the union is FEMA, and Hektoen is our Superdome!"

Though a much smaller bargaining unit, Hektoen workers, with their militancy and solidarity, have helped set the tone for the much bigger showdown at County. The union is threatening to call out the Hektoen workers on their own while continuing talks at County. Many workers have adopted the slogan, "Two Contracts — One Struggle," and want to strike both contracts together.

Health care is the main issue. The bosses were telling the Hektoen workers to sign up for the new health care plan they had just rejected, while the union sat by silently. The County’s last proposal would see increases in worker payments of about $200 month for family coverage, meaning a big wage-cut for most workers. And even these concessions pale compared to the health care available to the patients we serve.

The mostly black, Latin and immigrant poor patients at County often wait days in the ER for a bed, and more than 24 hours in the pharmacy for a prescription. The $6 billion-per-month cost of the war in Iraq is eating up all social services. In health care it means big cuts in Medicare and Medicaid that affect the poor and the elderly. Even a Sunday bus line to County was cut out. These racist cutbacks are financing the imperialist oil war and the building of the Homeland Security police state.

County and Hektoen workers are way ahead of the union leaders, who are desperately seeking an accommodation with the bosses. Last September the workers organized a bus to the anti-war march in Washington, D.C.

As one Party leader, a black woman with over 25 years at County, said recently, "Most workers are caught in the here and now. We need to spend more time struggling with the workers politically. We get so caught up fighting the attacks, the firings, handling grievances, fighting around the contract and with the Executive Board, that we spend more time fighting for reforms than for communism."

To remedy this, we’re trying to increase the CHALLENGE readership to 100, based on winning a number of new network distributors. A mass base for CHALLENGE will become the political leadership of the workers; they’ll be the first to follow the Party into battle. The network distributors will be the next wave of recruits. We’re planning a meeting for all CHALLENGE readers to fight for a strike that can truly be a school for communism.

Lynne Stewart Case: Hundreds Take Stand vs. Police State Attack

NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 8 — Tonight between 250 and 300 people attended a "speak-out" in support of Lynne Stewart, the lawyer facing a sentence of up to 30 years, for "conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism" and to "defraud the U.S. government." Her Arabic translator Mohamed Yousry and paralegal Ahmed Abdel Satter were also convicted. PL’ers distributed 90 CHALLENGES.

The event aimed to reach out to organizations and activists beyond Ms. Stewart’s normal base of supporters. The organizers hoped to merge the personal support for Lynne Stewart with the fight against developing fascistic trends facing working people in their schools, neighborhoods and unions. The event also featured politically-oriented entertainment by the "Raging Grannies," who sang, a spoken word poet, a comedian and a gospel singer.

Panelists included speakers from varied religious faiths, a union officer, a high school teacher and an anti-police brutality activist. Each gave impassioned reasons for supporting this fight. The clergy attempted to fuse their religious/moral outlook to activism needed to confront class, race and political oppression. The unionist questioned the failure of union "leaders" to openly oppose the war in Iraq and challenged their silence on the Stewart case. She called for rank-and-file power to change the direction of the unions.

The teacher related efforts to have Ms. Stewart speak at his school. His talk moved many in the audience to have confidence in youth to critically evaluate the world and act to fight racism, fascism and war. The speaker exposing police brutality demonstrated the need to fight this unjust system.

Afterwards, numerous people took the mic. One speaker explained how both Democrats and Republicans had joined together during the Clinton Administration — the Hart-Rudman Commission — to chart plans for wars abroad to control the world and fascism to prevent dissent at home. Another speaker questioned whether a system should exist that can’t and won’t house Katrina/Rita refugees, brutalizes youth, and won’t educate them.

A cheer arose for a speaker who — while detailing the attacks against auto and airline workers who face loss of pensions and health coverage — called for support of the NYC transit workers in their contract fight.

Probably the highlight of the speak-out portion were the teenagers from two Brooklyn high schools who detailed their activities in their schools to support this anti-racist struggle.

All in all, the general character of the evening was reflected in the statement by the anti-fascist German pastor Niemuller: "First they came for the communists and I did nothing. Then they came for the trade unionists and I still did nothing. Then they came for Jews and the Catholics and I did nothing. Finally they came for me, and there was no one left to defend me."

Homecare Workers Tell Off Sellout Union Bosses

NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 11 — Last week eleven homecare workers and their ESL teacher paid a surprise visit to their union, 1199/SEIU. As we left the elevator, shocked faces peered around cubicles. "What are your names and what agencies are you from?" the officials asked.

"That doesn’t matter," a worker replied. "We’re from different agencies, we’re here as a group and we want to see the president."

"She’s not here, but I’ll see you. I guess the revolution is starting today," said an official as she led us into a conference room. "So, what’s this about?"

"We want overtime pay that we’ve never gotten and we don’t want to work 24 hours for 12 hours pay," said the workers’ spokesperson.

The union official began a long-winded talk which several workers tried to interrupt. "Just let me finish!" the official admonished. (Later a worker said she acted like we were children or people from another planet.) Then a union organizer entered and recognized one worker and the ESL teacher because two years ago we had circulated a petition outside his assigned homecare agency demanding overtime. At that time he told us overtime was not the union’s priority and that the workers "liked" working 24 hours. "Yes, they love working 12 hours for free," the ESL teacher had shot back. Hundreds of workers had applauded as they lined up to sign the petition. Humiliated, the union official had scurried inside to meet with the agency’s director.

Now this same organizer wagged his finger in the faces of the worker and the teacher. "I know you and you. I don’t know what your motive is. But the rest of you better do this in an orderly way and within, not outside the union," he threatened.

Anger boiled over as the worker yelled back at him. The tables turned. All the workers spoke up. We demanded a meeting with the union president and that the union set up a committee to carry on this struggle. As we expected, the union official "explained" that a legal case to change a 1974 federal law that exempts "domestic companions" from the overtime law is in court and in the meantime there’s nothing the union can do.

"Yes, you can," responded a worker. "You can take us to Washington to fight this law."

"But the agencies and the City have no money," the official whined.

"Are you blaming that on us?" another worker added. "That’s the government’s problem, not ours."

"Just give us your names and phone numbers," the union official demanded. Not a single worker signed. Finally we agreed to leave one name and phone number so they can tell us the time of the meeting with the president. As this meeting ended the officials became defensive, saying, "We’re not your enemy, we’re on your side."

Afterwards the workers gathered far from the union building to discuss what had been learned. "I had to leave because I couldn’t stomach how they treated us." "They showed they’re not on our side."

"Why did they single you out?" a worker asked the teacher. The teacher, a PLP member, said, "It was a victory for us. Almost all of the workers spoke up. The union leaders exposed their racist attitudes toward their members. It’s the first time in two years of organizing that we’ve gotten their attention. Now we must keep it. To organize inside the union is messy and tricky, but we have to do it. They attacked me because they remember our petitioning activity, but also because they know that I’m motivated to fight for the working class. I’m against capitalism and I’m a long-time member of a revolutionary communist party, for those of you who don’t know. This is our newspaper."

Three distributors took their CHALLENGES; one gave $40. Other workers received it for the first time. The Party has many opportunities with these workers to continue and expand our fight-back and to raise political consciousness. We have a world to win!

Toledo Cops Protect Nazis, Attack Anti-Fascists

TOLEDO, OHIO, Dec. 10 — Two months after an anti-racist rebellion ran the "master race" out of town, about 30 Neo-Nazis returned to the scene of their crime, this time under much heavier police protection.

PLP members also returned, to spread revolutionary communist ideas and to try to smash the gutter fascists and their police protectors. Our group was mainly college students from Chicago and Indiana. About half were new to PLP and had never attended such an event.

At the rally, about 150 anti-Nazi demonstrators had to pass through police checkpoints, remove everything from their pockets, go through metal detectors and then be photographed! These fascist measures, coupled with freezing temperatures and the presence of about 200 cops (about 50 on horseback), caused many local residents to stay away.

The 30 Nazis were separated from the protestors by a full city block and a combination of a line of riot police, a 200-yard area covered in a foot of snow and a line of wooden horses. The police tried to provoke the crowd by riding horses into and around the anti-racist demonstrators. Towards the end of the demonstration, the police rode their horses directly into the crowd and arrested two people after assaulting one of them with a stun gun. They repeated this stampede several minutes later.

This action made it crystal clear who the police serve and protect. It exposed the true nature of the capitalist state we live under as one which not only protects, but promotes hatred. It also inspires us to fight for communism and build a world where racism will not be tolerated and Nazis will not be protected.

Home Health Care Workers Strike Over Racist Poverty Pay

NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 12 — On the cold and windy morning of Dec. 8, 1,000 home health care workers in Local 1199-SEIU, employed by People Care, went on a four-day strike over wages and health benefits. The agency pays less than $7 an hour with no health benefits or sick time. The racist and sexist bosses figure they can get away with these poverty conditions because the workers are predominantly black and Latin women.

As one worker told NY1-TV, "We need to pay our rent; we don’t have sick days. We don’t have holidays. Even for vacation, they only pay half of one week and the salary is so low."

The 1199-SEIU leadership neglected to mobilize mass strike support from among the 70,000 hospital workers. Consequently, there was a very small turnout on the picket line. This is the same leadership that’s always crowing about "strength in numbers" and that they’re a powerful and effective union. However, the union leadership uses its members for political campaigns to elect bosses’ politicians who represent the capitalist system that’s always cutting back on these same workers’ benefits.

Last year, 1199-SEIU settled with other home care agencies to raise hourly wages to $10. People Care has refused to match this. Even at $10 an hour (before taxes), it’s almost impossible for these workers to feed, clothe and house their families.

The home health care workers provide compassionate home care for people discharged from hospitals. The hospital bosses encourage shorter stays for these patients, because it increases their profits.

The patients tend to have more ailments when they’re discharged and require extra assistance at home. The workers administer medication, monitor pulse and temperature, assisting with physical therapy exercise, bathe, feed and dress the patients, run errands and escort patients to doctor appointments. Some patients are bedridden and obese, making the work even more strenuous. This work is just as important as that of a health care worker in a hospital but pays a lot less.

The capitalist home health care system is two-tiered, based upon agencies that make enormous profits from low-paid workers and a lack of patient care. Medicaid and Medicare finance the system, with the funds coming from taxes and bosses’ profits extracted from the working class. Medicaid and Medicare monies are channeled through Certified Home Health Agencies (CHHA). They withhold a substantial amount to pay their own administrative cost and reap their profits. They employ mostly nurses and therapists. These CHHAs in turn subcontract to Licensed Home Care Service Agencies. The LHCSA’s use the money from the CHHA’s to pay their own administrative costs and take their profit cut, leaving only a tiny amount for those who do all the work, the home health care workers.

Since the invasion of Iraq, billions have been diverted from social programs to support that war. The bosses are striving to reduce the cost of health care and drive down the wages of the working class. The answer is to organize the working class to build the PLP around the revolutionary communist ideas in CHALLENGE.

LETTERS

Anti-war Conference Spawns New Activists

The Students and Educators to Stop the War Conference (CHALLENGE, 12/14) provided a broad political arena for students and teachers who had never attended such a mass, progressive event. Newcomers witnessed mass political activism and saw themselves as political agents. Students made presentations, chaired sessions, helped with logistics and attended Youth/Student Committee meetings combining political veterans and new activists. A significant group of teachers brought students and participated similarly. The numbers reflect years of strong base-building and political struggle by students and teachers active on many campuses.

The conference increased students' and teachers' commitment to fight against the war in Iraq and against racism. At one high school this inspired more students to join a student club and confront military recruiters. More actions are being planned and more people are reading CHALLENGE.

At one college, which produced about 60 people for the conference, some enthusiastic teachers want to organize a mini-conference at their school.

Over 30 students attended from another school. Their preparation for the workshops helped them understand much more about the war and its connection to racism and capitalism. In the workshops, the ideological struggle was sharp.

In one workshop, on immigrants and the bosses' military, there were four presenters. One high school student advocated the need to organize in the military. This contrasted with some of the presenters who said that youth in general, and immigrants in particular, should completely reject the military. The inter-imperialist rivalry for resources (oil) and world dominance was highlighted. Another speaker described the Russian and Chinese revolutions. When one mentioned defending "our people," a discussion ensued about the whole working class being "our people."

Another workshop was devoted to teaching about war and peace in elementary school. Creative lesson plans were presented to raise issues about war with younger students. When opposition arose to the pledge of allegiance, some participants had a nationalist response, but most responded positively to the idea that the working class must unite internationally, rejecting all bosses' divisions.

In a workshop on dismantling the war machine, one presenter reviewed moral and religious grounds against the war. Another described how the war machine was part of capitalism and its quest for empire. Yet another advanced the need for revolution and the role of soldiers and workers in making it. At the end, someone asked what the solution was. One presenter said "socialism." Another presenter said that every time socialism was heroically fought for and established, it returned to capitalism, that the answer was communism, which the working class can fight for directly.

Many teachers were excited at seeing young people who were politically sharp and motivated. Most people who went came away exhilarated, wanting to do more to fight back and to learn more about how to end the war machine. A lot can come from this conference, as we keep the action and political struggle in high gear.

West Coast Participant

France: Clear Rebels of Deadly Assault

The article "France: Youth Explode Against Racism" (CHALLENGE, 11/30) includes an inaccuracy which is not without political significance. The article says "the young rebels" were responsible for "a deadly assault on a retired auto worker."

It seemed that way initially. L’Humanité (11/8) reported that on Nov. 4, Jean-Charles Le Chenadec, 60, president of an apartment building tenants association in Stains, went to the foot of the building with the association vice-president to douse a fire in a garbage bin. The two men were talking when some youths threw stones at them. The men ignored this. Then a man approached them and asked what they were talking about. They answered, "Our cars." The man struck Le Chenadec, who fell to the ground in a coma.

A small group of youths ran to help the two officials and then dashed into the street and stopped a passing ambulance. Unfortunately, this was in vain and Le Chenadec died on Nov. 7.

However, on Dec. 1, Le Monde published an article indicating that Le Chenadec’s widow, Nicole, had stated she believed her husband’s murder was a revenge killing unrelated to the urban violence.

Apparently the young rebels are not guilty of murder, but rather did everything possible to save Le Chenadec’s life. Nevertheless, CHALLENGE is right in saying that the rebels did make serious mistakes.

A Reader in France

Anti-Racist Holiday Excites Co-Workers

At my new job, soon after the Thanks for Fighting Racism Feast (TFFRF; see CHALLENGE, 12/14), I was eating lunch while chatting with a young black coworker around my age. He was fasting, even though he loves meat and barbecue and a lot of other great food. He said the aroma of the cooking was giving him hunger pangs. When I asked this buddy of mine why he was doing this, he replied he was protesting Thanksgiving. After all, he told me, Thanksgiving is really about conquest, not about friendship and community, and any assertions to the contrary are essentially a propaganda spin to make racist pigs look like wallflowers. So he fasts to show his opposition to all that.

I immediately thought about the TFFRF, and how amazing and inspiring to have had such a group of people in Washington D.C. that past weekend to recap a year of fighting racism, and yet also have the REAL food and community that most people associate with the racist Thanksgiving holiday. So I said, "There’s this great event that happens the weekend before Thanksgiving; it’s an anti-racist version of that day..."

As I revealed my friend’s protest already existed as an organized dinner, including food, absolutely everybody else in the room — maybe fifteen others — stopped their own conversations and started listening to me outline the TFFRF. They stared with a mixture of amazement, happiness and mock anger that I hadn’t told them sooner! Then everyone, including my friend, starting dropping stuff like, "Why didn't you say anything?" and, "Invite me next year!"

I was embarrassed, not because of their attention to me, but because I realized my error in not having considered that they all might have wanted to attend the Feast together! I assured them I’d invite them next year, and they responded, "Yeah, you better!"

This taught me that even in a new situation — although it might take time before people could come closer to the Party and to communist thought — it doesn’t automatically mean it takes just as much time to introduce them to an anti-racist event. Many people are anti-racist and already understand the need for people everywhere to fight racism. The fact that I didn't invite them shows not only that I simply "didn't think of it" because I’m new on the job, but also that I don’t have the confidence I should have in people who are active in reform movements but really, in their hearts, also want serious change.

I’ve learned that lesson now and all these co-workers will receive a full, open, and well-in-advance invitation to next year’s Thanks For Fighting Racism Feast!

Young (new) worker

Soccer Players Score Against Racism

Imagine my surprise when I turned on the soccer channel Sunday morning (12/4) to watch Lazio vs. Siena in the Italian league. The teams lined up side by side, reached down, picked up a big banner and unfurled it across the whole line-up: "No al Razzismo!" (No to Racism!)

The players were protesting racist heckling of black players in European matches, where the teams field players from all over the world. I had heard of these types of racist actions in Spain but not in Italy. This protest was an act of multi-racial, international solidarity among the players, and I wonder who organized it. Professional players make high salaries, far more than workers, but it was great they did this. It went beyond the individual political protests U.S. athletes sometimes make.

The match went to Lazio 3-2, but today both teams scored against racism.

Calcio Rosso (Red Football)

a name="‘Amazing Grace’ Won’t Beat Transit Bosses"></a>"Amazing Grace’ Won’t Beat Transit Bosses

On December 10th an overflow crowd of transit workers squeezed into NYC's Jacob Javits Center as thousands more stood outside. The mass membership meeting began with bagpipers circling the hall playing 'Amazing Grace,' which was written by the captain of a slave ship. Then came the pledge of allegiance to a system that practices genocide against Katrina victims and millions worldwide. This was followed by prayers by those who condone the slaughter by insisting that only god and not workers' power can stop it. Finally some flag-waving "justified" a steady supply of soldiers from our ranks for bosses' profit wars, financed by driving us into poverty.

The meeting consisted mostly of a discussion of Metropolitan Transit Authority demands for give-backs, speed-up, second class status for new workers and dangerous service cuts. The absence of any worker demands seemed to suggest the union would settle for a small raise and the stopping of most, but not all, of the give-backs. The lack of any real strike preparation or any rank-and-file input into the strike decision leads me to believe the Toussaint leadership will announce another, 12th-hour sellout "deal."

The hard reality is that the TWU is led by high-paid bureaucrats who use workers' dues to pay lawyers and politicians to negotiate with the bosses. It took bloody rank-and-file struggles led by communists to win the right to form the Transport Workers Union and establish collective leadership from the bottom up, with leaders like Mike Quill receiving an average worker's wage. When the U.S. government tried to force workers to pay for the Vietnam War, (like Bush with Iraq today), Quill led the workers in defying the war and anti-strike laws in a successful strike against cuts that would "force our workers into poverty."

Transit workers cannot continue to let these sellouts mentioned above conduct our struggles against corporate oppression. We must face the reality of a fight to the death against the bosses and their cops, courts and military. We need to unite with communists again, not just to win good contracts but to build a system dedicated to workers' needs — communism

Retired transit worker

Back Anti-Minutemen Protesters

ORANGE COUNTY, CA, Dec. 12 — Two anti-racists who were arrested May 25 for demonstrating against the Minutemen had their preliminary hearing today. The Judge refused to drop or lower any charges against one of them and dropped only two charges against the other. They face serious charges based on the lies of the Garden Grove and Orange County police who attacked the demonstration.

We ask those who support the fight against racism and the system it thrives on to contribute money to help with a vigorous legal and political defense against this attack. The defendants and their supporters are organizing a speaking tour about the Minutemen, the rise of racism and fascism and the need to organize against them. They spoke at the "Students and Educators to Stop the War" conference where they received donations and support. This fight, part of the long-term fight to destroy racism at its roots, will continue.

Language-Literature Profs Planning Counter-Attack vs. Fascist Control

Most people don’t think of academic conferences as political battlegrounds, but the Radical Caucus of the Modern Language Association (MLA) knows that winning the hearts and minds of the Association’s faculty and graduate students is an important part of the struggle to put people ahead of corporate profits. The MLA is the nation’s largest association of college language and literature professors. It meets each year from Dec. 27-30.

This year, the Caucus is aiming to battle the conservative groups that are trying to control what’s taught or discussed on campus. The Caucus is organizing two academic sessions on "Academic Work and the New McCarthyism." As part of its counter-attack, it’s proposing a resolution and a motion to the Delegate Assembly. They directly link the right-wing attacks to the economic de-funding and restructuring of higher education. The latter has replaced tenure/tenure-track faculty with vulnerable graduate teaching assistants or adjunct and non-tenure track ("contingent") faculty. These groups teach up to 65-75% of all higher education courses, at much lower salaries.

Government cuts in student financial aid, university administrative attacks on graduate student unions and exorbitant increases in tuition exemplify how economic attacks on higher education have freed up tax dollars for war and corporate tax cuts, making political activism more difficult just when it’s most needed. Communist faculty and students in the Progressive Labor Party have been active supporters of Radical Caucus resolutions and other efforts to popularize Marxist perspectives. We’re fighting for anti-capitalist demands that expose the inabilities of capitalism to meet our needs and to argue that more radical change is needed — and possible — over time.

The Radical Caucus resolution calls on the MLA to "oppose the Academic and Student Bills of Rights (A/SBOR) and all related legislation" which give government agencies power over course content and faculty expression. Distorting the rhetoric of the "Bill of Rights," these groups — including David Horowitz’s Center for Popular Culture, Students for Academic Freedom, Campus Watch and the David Project — want to enforce the teaching of reactionary ideas that cannot win support on their own merit while violating the rights of both students and faculty.

The Caucus motion demands that the MLA leadership allot financial and human resources to urge the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to modify its policies to "assert the freedom of each faculty member, tenured or untenured, part-time or full-time, to determine…what is relevant to the subject matter he or she teaches, and to teach accordingly." The motion argues that the current AAUP statement "provides humanities teachers with insufficient protection, since it is widely acknowledged that our ‘subject’ has porous boundaries, and the determination of ‘controversiality’ is politicized."

Within the MLA, the Radical Caucus has been the primary leader of anti-capitalist struggles for more than a decade, successfully proposing resolutions that link the growing international competition over resources, the "war on terrorism" and the U.S. invasion of Iraq to growing political repression and economic attacks at home. Many of these resolutions — advocating academic labor justice and opposing racism, fascism and imperialist war — have passed the Delegate Assembly by large margins. This indicates that MLA members recognize how capitalist economic goals have led to massive reallocations of tax dollars to fund the war and to provide, through tax cuts, unprecedented profits for corporations and banks.

Since 9/11, and especially through the USA Patriot Act and the propaganda campaign around the "war on terrorism," faculty nationwide have been intimidated, and in some cases even fired, when their teaching "questions" U.S. foreign policy or the war. One recent example is the campaign to fire Warren County Community College English Professor John Peter Daly when his e-mail protesting an on-campus event by the right-wing Young Americans for Freedom was fed to the media. Such attacks, just like the torture in Abu Ghraib and the CIA’s secret prisons abroad, reflect the hardball being played by the U.S. government and economic elite, using intimidation and force, to enforce their policies as their lies get exposed and public support wanes for their imperialist motives.

At past conventions, PLP members have played a critical role in advancing Marxist class analyses of literary/cultural issues, of the Iraq war and of the growing ruling-class use of fascist tactics. As the economic and human costs of war increase the stakes at home and abroad, it’s more important than ever to help build a movement for communist ideas in the MLA.

a name="‘Land of Dead’ Review"></">‘L"nd of Dead’ Review

George Romero’s fourth zombie saga, "Land of the Dead," was recently released on dvd. Along with outlandish gore, it offers serious class politics—in fact, according to both Romero and those who know him, he made the film with politics in mind. Not that this is anything new. Romero is known for his populist take on the horror genre as well as his collective method of directing movies, in which actors and other staff share multiple jobs and have a say in the shooting of the films. "Night of the Living Dead," his first zombie film released in 1968, was, according to both critics and Romero (in a recent interview), a commentary on the violence of the Vietnam War as well as a critique of rural racism. 1979’s "Dawn of the Dead," filmed in one of the country’s first shopping malls, is a classic satire on consumerism. The 1985 sequel "Day of the Dead" (as well as Romero’s 1975 film "The Crazies," about military quarantine of a town with an outbreak of a psychosis-inducing virus), was a blunt attack on the racism, sexism, and "leaderism" of the military, with a healthy poke at the idealism of modern science. Romero’s zombie movies are also implicitly antiracist: "Night" features a strong, confident black man as its star, and both "Dawn" and "Day" end with a black man and white woman as the film’s only survivors.

This brings us to "Land of the Dead," which features a black male gas station attendant (humorously named Big Daddy) in the "lead zombie" role. The county’s few remaining human survivors live barricaded inside a city, with the outskirts (and everywhere else) populated by flesh-eating zombies. But the real problem is that a class system still remains, and with a vengeance. Dennis Hopper plays Kaufman, the self-appointed leader, a power-hungry ruling-class type who lives in an exclusive high-rise shopping mall called Fiddler’s Green. Only the rich, through an exclusive application process, are allowed to inhabit this place, which, it is soon pointed out, Kaufman simply took over. The rest are left to live in a slum. Kaufman maintains control not only with a personal security force dressed in nazi-like gray uniforms, but by providing the people with "vices and games"for example, a casino includes a grotesque game in which bets are placed on which caged zombie would be the first to kill a prostitute (perhaps meant as a satire on wrestling and other sports).

One of the movie’s best political scenes occurs when a Scottish man encourages several slum-dwellers to rise up against Kaufman, so they can collectively improve their lives. The film’s main plot line centers on John Leguizamo’s character, Cholo, a young Puerto Rican man whom Kaufman has hired to make dangerous trips outside to collect food and other supplies that can’t be produced in the walled-in city. However, Cholo’s real goal is to save up enough money in order to live in Fiddler’s Green. When Kaufman turns him down, due to his own racism and classism, Cholo takes drastic measures, which could also harm the city’s non-ruling class residents. Kaufman then sends the film’s hero, played by Simon Baker, to stop Cholo, but he has his own individualistic goal of moving to Canada, where there are neither people nor zombies.

However, "Land"s secondary plot is much more interesting. More and more zombies are seen trying to use tools, presumably as a way to imitate their former human existence. A trick that the humans use to distract the zombies begins to lose its effectiveness. The zombies, although technically dead, seem to be learning (a theme hinted at in Romero’s earlier films). This is all happening under the leadership of Big Daddy, who seems to be aware of how his fellow dead are being slaughtered by the humans on their missions. With the zombies as a parallel for the underclass, Romero hits us with an exciting subplot with revolutionary implications.

"Land" is not without flaws. Some of the acting is uninspired, the ending is a bit anticlimactic, and it was mostly filmed at night, making the gory scenes that had occurred in broad daylight in "Dawn" and "Day" seem less bizarre. The over-the-top gore and violence is not for everyone. And Romero apparently intended Kaufman’s character to be more of a jab at the Bush administration than against the ruling class in general (there’s a funny scene where Kaufman inadvertently quotes Bush). However, it’s great to see a film that is both fun and sides with the underdog, while trying to wake people up to the class oppression we live under.

REDEYEZ

Profiteers rob poorest countries of trillions

Five trillion dollars has been corruptly removed from the world’s poorest countries and lodged permanently in the world’s richest countries….

Multinational corporations, wealthy individuals and unscrupulous governments….use the world’s tax havens and banking systems to hide sums of money that could address almost all of the continent’s financial needs.

…Some 30% of the GDP of sub-Saharan African nations disappeared offshore in the second half of the 1990s. The situation in the Middle East and north Africa is even worse….

…Greedy individuals and companies and compliant banking systems and governments are far more responsible than corrupt dictators for the state of the poorest countries. (GW, 12/15)

Maybe Bush’s emergency abilities flu away

I’m not saying that President Bush is a dud in responding to national emergencies but when he announced his plan to fight the next flu pandemic, Las Vegas odds makers immediately installed flu as a 3-1 favorite….(MinutemanMedia.org, 11/15)

Nobelest Pinter roasts US lies and brutality

London, Dec.7 — The playwright Harold Pinter turned his Nobel Prize acceptance speech…into a furious howl of outrage against American foreign policy, saying that the United States had not only lied to justify waging war against Iraq but had also "supported and in many cases engendered every right-wing military dictatorship" in the last 50 years….

Mr. Pinter said: "You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good….

"Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don’t need to think. Just lie back on the cushion…" (NYT, 12/8)

Ruling class $ goes to Iraq, not New Orleans

Young middle-aged and old, these citizens of New Orleans, wiped out by Hurricane Katrina and now urgently seeking government assistance, spoke Friday of sleeping in a truck and on a floor, living out of a car and waiting for the help that never seems to come….

"You come to these FEMA centers, you sit all day" said Myrna Guity, 43, …."You get no answers to your questions. They’re evasive. You’re constantly ‘pending.’ What are you going to be doing, ‘pending’ for the rest of your life? I’ve lost everything.…"

Three months after the storm, political figures here talk often of the progress that has been made….But hidden behind these sometimes rosy declarations are tens of thousands of their constituents, living at the edge of their dwindling resources….

"We’ve got food stamps, and that’s pretty much it." (NYT, 12/3)

US capitalism up while most families down

Over the last few years G.D.P growth has been reasonably good, and corporate profits have soared. But that growth has failed to trickle down to most Americans.

Back in August the Census bureau released family income data for 2004. The report, which was overshadowed by Hurricane Katrina, showed a remarkable disconnect between overall economic growth and economic fortunes of most American families.

It should have been a good year for American families: the economy grew 4.2 percent, its best performance since 1999. Yet most families actually lost economic ground….

And one key source of economic insecurity got worse, as the number of Americans without health insurance continued to rise.

We don’t have comparable data for 2005 yet, but it’s pretty clear that the results will be similar…. (NYT, 12/5)

Bosses’ media hypnotize public with lies

The power of these lies was considerable. In a CBS News/New York Times poll released on Sept. 25, 2001, 60 percent of Americans thought Osama bin Laden had been the culprit in the attacks of two weeks earlier, either alone or in league with unnamed "others" or with the Taliban; only 6 percent thought bin Laden had collaborated with Saddam; and only 2 percent thought Saddam had been the sole instigator. By the time we invaded Iraq in 2003, however, CBS News found that 53 percent believed Saddam had been "personally involved" in 9/11; other polls showed…a similar percentage of Americans…convinced…that the hijackers were Iraqis. (NYT,11/12)

Unions shrink as bosses strongarm workers

…The percentage of American private sector workers in unions has fallen to 7.9 percent, the lowest rate in a century and down from 35 percent in the 1950’s….

…Surveys showed that more than half of American workers say they would vote to join a union if they could.…Nearly one-third of companies facing unionization campaigns fire union supporters and…one-half threaten to close work sites. (NYT, 12/9)

Slavery Built New York

Capitalism was born dripping blood from its pores. As Karl Marx pointed out, the original accumulation of capital — essential to the development of the profit system — was created by robbery and mass murder. The trans-Atlantic slave trade and enslavement of 12 million black Africans remains one of the greatest examples of this robbery. A current exhibit at the New York Historical Society on slavery in New York City bears this out. (Quotations are from this exhibit.) Teachers should definitely take their classes to see it. It closes March 5.

The slave trade "was the largest forced migration in world history," in which millions died from the brutal conditions on the slave ships. The racism directed first against Native Americans and soon afterwards against black people (later extended to Latino, Asian and other immigrants) was the foundation stone of U.S. capitalism. Without the continuance of this racist exploitation, it could not survive.

Originally, slavery of black people existed alongside "unfree white labor" — indentured servitude, forced military service (impressement), apprenticeship and convict labor. But "only in the late 17th century did North American [slave owners] tie lifelong and hereditary slavery to skin color." Soon the rulers used the division between black and white as a club over white workers’ heads to force down their wages. This rulers’ racism has been used to weaken the working class ever since.

"The trans-Atlantic [slave] trade yielded fabulous profits and transformed the world…. Profits from this trade fueled the world’s first industrial revolution in 18th century England."

"The trading of slaves along the African coast was tied to the rise of plantation agriculture in the Americas and the enormous expansion of European waterborne commerce."

The schools teach about slavery in the Southern U.S., in South America and in the Caribbean, but rarely mention slavery in the northern colonies of New York and New England. Yet from 1613 to 1633, Dutch ships provided the slaves who literally "built New York." The Dutch West India Company told Peter Stuyvesant, its Director-General in New York, that, "The importation of Negroes would greatly benefit the cultivation of the soil….The welfare of the country depends on it."

Stuyvesant supplied slaves to Portuguese, British and French sugar plantations in Brazil, Barbados…and throughout the Caribbean" as well as "to New England, Chesapeake" and "to farmers on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley." When the British took over New York from the Dutch in 1664, slaves "provided the labor that made New York boom."

"Trading in slaves was big business and enriched merchants, farmers, professionals and craftsmen." In 1703, "42% of New Yorkers had slaves….Among cities, only Charleston, South Carolina, had more."

"Slavery was the lifeline of hundreds of New York businesses…. Slave ads helped keep newspapers in business" because of regular advertisements for the buying and selling of slaves as shiploads arrived in New York, and through ads for the capture of runaways.

State law proclaimed, "All children born of slave mothers shall be slaves as well…. Living conditions were harsh, work constant." The "work-day" began before dawn and lasted until late at night. Revolts were met with death. Organized religion justified the oppression.

But, "For 400 years slaves rebelled, during the Middle Passage, on plantations, escaping to mountains, swamps and jungles…. Resistance never stopped." The first mass rebellion in New York occurred in 1712.

When slaves were promised freedom during the War for Independence, many joined Washington’s army. One-fourth of the troops at the final British surrender were black. However, when the war ended, Washington demanded the return of his slaves. (The British promised freedom to slaves who joined their army.)

The burgeoning need of Northern capitalists for wage labor impelled them to push for elimination of slave labor. Wage labor cheapened the cost to the capitalists, who imported a flood of white immigrants from Europe to compete with the freed slaves for jobs, driving costs even lower and profits higher. This led to the outlawing of slavery in New York in 1827, though not in New Jersey until the 1860’s and led directly to the U.S. Civil War, to prevent the spread of slave labor as the U.S. expanded westward. However, after the North won the war, the Northern capitalists helped the former slave owners keep freed slaves terrorized and a source of cheap labor there as well.

The Society’s exhibit did not cover the brutality and conditions on Southern cotton plantations, where thousands of slave rebellions occurred. But despite this, the exhibit does reveal much about how slavery was central to the economic growth of U.S. capitalism. The major capitalists sponsoring this exhibit hope to imply "progress" since slavery. But the horrors of Katrina visited on the black people of New Orleans; the 70% of the two million in U.S. prisons who are black and Latino; the prison-like schools in the inner cities; the mass unemployment among black and Latino youth; the racist police and many other racist horrors— all this can be traced to the brutal conditions of slavery suffered by black people for centuries. No exhibit implying "progress" can hide these continuing racist crimes by the capitalist ruling class based on endless wars and racist super-exploitation.

Capitalism and racism were born together. Only the struggle to build a society based on the abolition of wage slavery and racism can free the entire working class from the yoke of oppression. That society is communism.

UNDER COMMUNISM: What will science be like?

Science, far from being purely objective, is largely influenced by the prevailing social and economic system. For example, Darwin’s theory that evolution occurs through natural selection, has influenced the field of biology for the last 150 years. Few scientists have disagreed with the fact that evolution has taken place, but Darwin and other scientists showed that natural selection was one of the key mechanisms making it happen. Currently the anti-science religious right-wing is trying to roll back this scientific progress.

Nevertheless, as powerful and confirmed as Darwin’s theory has been, it also partly reflects the capitalist social relationships of Victorian England — a highly individualistic society, marked by workers competing for jobs subservient to capitalist exploiters competing for profits. Thus, Darwin’s formulation is about "survival of the fittest" rather than merely "survival of the fit." Not all relationships among members of a species or between members of different species are competitive. Many species cooperate to help those members with disabilities, such as parents do with children, so that even many of the less fit members will be able to survive and produce their own children.

In today’s capitalist society, similar false ideas are passed off as "objective science." For example, to justify racist and sexist discrimination, genetic theories of "race" and gender differences claim that white people are born "more intelligent" than black people or that men are born "more intelligent" than women.

Recently two scientists from Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in NYC posed that violent behavior among black youth is inherited. They proposed giving drugs to innocent children to curb "possible future criminality." In the 1980’s, a racist British scientist, Cyril Burt, claimed intelligence was inherited — based on his "studies" of twins. His data was exposed as completely falsified to produce this racist result. Emphasizing environment instead of genetics, Ivy Leaguers Banfield and Jencks concluded that impoverished workers were so used to the "culture" of slums that they actually "preferred" to live in slums!

Or consider the claim that the HIV virus causes AIDS. While HIV contributes, this simplistic approach omits the factors of widespread poverty, ignorance, racism, lack of medical care, global profit-seeking and sexism that contribute to full-blown AIDS.

So if society influences science, what will it be like under communism? Firstly, an understanding of science won’t be restricted to just a few select scientists. All workers will come to understand it.

Communists will fight for more widespread knowledge of the social sciences which will occur prior to a revolution. Many workers will need first to grasp the ideas of communist scientific philosophy — dialectical materialism. "Dialectical" refers to the struggle between two opposites. "Materialism" refers to the position that objective reality — not "design" or idealistic "freedom" of will — determines how people think and act. Dialectical materialism is, first and foremost, the science of revolution, including the interpretation of history that the working class is the dynamic force for social change.

In biology, for example, worker-scientists will develop an understanding of the extraordinary complexity defining the relationship between genetics and environment, how they simultaneously act on one another. We will learn the many ways in which the social environment affects the individual and vice versa.

Under communism we will struggle for every worker to be trained in the science of dialectical materialism. At every workplace and in every classroom, we will learn, and be guided by, the dynamic laws of change present in everyday life. Capitalism, on the other hand, through its schools, seeks to create an unquestioning, robot-like working class in its factories and in its armies. Communist society will need every individual worker to actively question and think about effective ways to improve the conditions of all: from the prevention of deadly diseases, to protection against natural disasters like Katrina, tsunamis or devastating earthquakes. We will study how to improve personal relationships, health and the environment. Science under communism, above all, will liberate the working class from misery and want.

(A future column will show what the science of dialectical materialism reveals about capitalism.)